Institutional trustworthiness and national security governance: Evidence from six European countries

This article examines the relationship between the institutional trustworthiness of security agencies in the context of data‐intensive security practices. It focuses on the public's acceptance of the way digital surveillance technologies feed into large‐scale security data analytics. Using the case of deep packet inspection (DPI), survey data gathered in six European countries (n = 1,202) demonstrates that security agencies' institutional trustworthiness directly and indirectly influences public acceptance of DPI. Against a backdrop of declining public trust in government and a climate of intense international terrorist threat, governments around the world are appealing to citizens to trade privacy for enhanced security. This article supports calls for security agencies and their respective governments to engage with the democratic process to enrich security and privacy at all levels of public security governance and for the common good.     

Politics of private regulation: ISEAL and the shaping of transnational sustainability governance

Scholars describe the proliferation of sustainability standards by multi‐stakeholder initiatives as part of an organizational field for sustainability. The aim of this article is to gain a better understanding of the institutionalization process of this global organizational field by focusing on the case of the ISEAL Alliance (the global association for sustainability standards). We show how ISEAL puts specific strategies into place to both reinforce and expand the role and influence of sustainability standards. This institutional entrepreneurship consists primarily of two dimensions: institutionalizing macro‐standards based on a market‐driven and procedural vision of sustainability; and simultaneously legitimating both the tools and ISEAL through internal and external enrolments and entanglements. The characterization of ISEAL's activities in this way brings politics back into the analysis of sustainability standard‐related technical debates and extends our understanding of how the micro‐dynamics within organizational fields are interdependent upon macro‐dynamics outside organizational fields.     

Umbilical cord blood banking and its interruptions: notes from Chennai,India

Abstract

What is the relationship between globalization and the body? In both scholarly discourse and everyday practice, the relationship between globalization and the body has been understood through the idea of accumulation – the intensified and interlinked pursuit of health and wealth. Through an examination of private umbilical cord blood banking in south India, this paper investigates the interplay of accumulation and its interruption in Indians' uptake of this practice. Although Chennai-based bankers, doctors and parents explain the recent surge in popularity for cord blood banking in the city in terms of interlinked financial and familial accumulation, investment and security, Indians' cultural and religious conceptions of the latent power of the placenta and cord often work against cord blood banking marketers' neat account of twinned economic and familial accumulation. Analytic attention to interruption highlights the tensions within and precariousness of the accumulation at the heart of the relationship between globalization and the body.     

Unpacking a Wicked Problem: Enablers/Impediments to Regional Engagement

A case study approach is applied to review Local Government Authorities (LGA) regional engagement in the Australian context. We address the question ‘What are the key LGA enablers/impediments to regional engagement?’ by applying Leydesdorff's (2000) proposition that triple helix type network systems exhibit patterns of complex behaviour if the interaction factors that trigger enablers are reflexively declared. The three strands of the LGA triple helix network system are institutions, industry and government. In this case study the LGA's overall management of its regional stakeholder relationships resulted in impediments that limit strong regional engagement. Importantly, the findings inform practitioners, policy‐makers and research audiences of the nature of impediments and, by inference, the nature of enablers in LGA triple helix network systems.     

Asymmetry in Japan and Korea's agricultural liberalization in FTA: domestic trade governance perspective

Abstract

This paper examines the nexus between food security and sustainability governance through a case study of palm oil. Palm oil's advocates claim that campaigns against palm oil and actions to halt its expansion due to sustainability concerns can undermine its food security role. However, palm oil expansion more directly undermines the food and livelihood security of rural and indigenous communities when land that rightfully belongs to, or has been used by, these communities is alienated to firms for oil palm cultivation with little or no consultation or compensation provided or alternatives considered. It is in this context that the paper examines whether the multi-stakeholder Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) is able to ensure that this commodity is cultivated in ways that minimise environmental damage and livelihood disruption, thereby safeguarding palm oil's contribution to food security. The findings are mixed. RSPO certification provides fairly comprehensive and progressive socio-environmental regulation that has enhanced sustainable production practises in this industry especially by the larger transnational plantation companies mindful of their global reputation. The RSPO is also far more responsive than governments have been to the land rights of rural and indigenous communities, providing due process for land claimants as well as recognising that these communities may have legitimate rights to land even if companies were awarded legal title by governments. However, multi-stakeholder regimes can be fragile, requiring a great deal of internal accommodation and trade-offs to work. Already, different interests in the RSPO are pulling in different directions while national certification systems have emerged that are less onerous compared to the RSPO even as the latter seeks to further enhance its sustainability credentials.     

‘Consensus’ participation: an example for protected areas planning

This article forwards the argument that combining institutional and people participation is fundamental to the pursuit of ‘sustainability’. A generalized model of participation is proposed based on building consensus and preventing/resolving conflict between all stakeholders who might be influential in, or affected by, the effect of major developments on a society's goals for sustainability. This ‘consensus’ participation model seeks to overcome problems relating to the exclusive nature of community-based ‘popular’ participation (such as Participatory Rural Appraisal), and the narrow economic nature of current ‘stakeholder’ participation. The model is founded upon two ideas: that to achieve consensus requires stakeholders to negotiate and reach agreement collaboratively, and that certain stakeholders (e.g. the disenfranchised poor and entrenched government bureaucracies) are often polarized from a capability to contribute effectively to this process. In a manner similar to the introduction of methodologies to guide environmental management in project planning (environmental impact assessment, land use evaluation etc.), it is suggested that methodological frameworks are needed to aid the process of integrating ‘consensus’ participation within major development initiatives (large-scale projects, sectoral programmes, strategic land use or resource management planning, and regional and national policy formulation). Based on research in Zambia, an example of a consensus-orientated participation framework is presented, designed to guide preparation of strategic management plans for protected areas. The example is used to draw out some of the benefits of ‘consensus’ participation. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Transformational Leadership and Organizational Processes: Influencing Public Performance

Leaders are essential actors in public performance improvement and organizational change. However, a key question has not been adequately addressed in prior literature on the topic: how do leadership processes make a difference? Using data on New York City public schools, this article explores the organizational mechanisms by which a specific form of principal's leadership—transformational leadership—influences objective organizational outcomes as measured by standardized test scores. The empirical results indicate that a principal's transformational leadership style affects student test scores through the mediating effects of purposeful performance information use and stakeholder engagement.     

Pictures at an exhibition revisited: reflections on a typology of images used in the construction of corporate social responsibility and sustainability in non‐financial corporate reporting

• Strategic corporate and public affairs communication about Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has emerged as a major component of corporate efforts to interact with their stakeholders and society at large. Non‐financial reporting, and CSR reporting in particular, is now seen as an essential corporate communication process by most members of a company's stakeholder community. This growth in CSR reporting has been driven by the need to increase corporate transparency and accountability concerning social and environmental issues. Arguably, the European Union is the most progressive region in adopting CSR reporting. Almost all of Europe's top 100 companies report on social and environmental performance, whilst figures for the USA and the rest of the world are much lower. The latest Accountability Rating concludes that ‘Europe leads, America lags’ after measuring companies' social and environmental impacts.
• The authors argue that visual communication is as important as words and numbers in creating meaning and assess UK and German Companies' non‐financial performance. Utilizing a range of research methods including content analysis and semiotic interpretation the authors propose a typology of images used in non‐financial reporting. This typology and associated conceptual development can used to more accurately define and interpret CSR and sustainability.

Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The Development of Competitive Industries: The Role of State Government Actors

Despite widespread adoption of Porter's Industrial Cluster Theory as a policy development framework by federal and state governments over the past decade, Australia remains significantly below the OECD average in terms of its industries' economic contributions to real wealth creation ( Brown 2000 ; OECD 1998 ). The major cause cited for this relatively poor performance has been inability of key government officials to implement effective industry policy that simultaneously avoids de facto protectionism and distortion of competition. This article provides an insight into the key policy decisions undertaken by the Tasmanian state government that coincided with development of an internationally successful shipbuilding industry in that state. As such, this article provides a reflection on policy initiatives that may be valuable for government officials elsewhere.     

Crisis communication during the red sludge spill disaster in Hungary—a media content analysis‐based investigation

The article analyses the media coverage of red sludge spill, one of Hungary's largest crises. The study focuses on the analysis of stakeholder communication through their media representation, including the patterns, frames and messaging of the key stakeholder groups. It is found that stakeholder groups create their own framing and messaging and therefore give impetus to the creation of parallel realities. The scope of the analysis has allowed for the analysis of longitudinal changes and identification of trends in the behaviour of the media. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Empirical examination of public debt sustainability in African economies: A panel data analysis

This study intends to investigate public debt sustainability across 29 Sub-Sahara African (SSA) economies, employing various econometric specifications, for the sampled years 1996–2020. The study employs Bohn's (Are stationarity and cointegration restrictions really necessary for the intertemporal budget constraint? Journal of monetary Economics, 54(7), pp.1837–1847.) framework of sustainability as the baseline model to assess public debt sustainability across the sampled Sub-Sahara African economies. As additional tests of public debt sustainability in order to support the baseline findings, the study also employs panel unit root and timeseries unit tests. The baseline findings from the OLS, panel quantile and instrumental panel quantile regressions show that public debt is sustainable across the panel of SSA economies. The positive and statistically significant response of primary balance under the Bohn's framework of sustainability manifest that the intertemporal budget constraint is not violated in the sampled economies. The consistency in the estimates under the OLS, panel quantile and instrumental panel quantile regressions also show that the estimates are robust throughout the estimation process. Also, utilizing the panel unit root test for public debt sustainability, the findings show that public debt is stationary over the sampled years which implies that intertemporal budget constraint holds and that public debt is sustainable across the sampled SSA economies. However, the timeseries analysis indicate that although majority of the SSA economies have sustainable public debt ratios, four countries namely Uganda, Sudan, Togo and Cote d'Ivoire have unsustainable public debt ratios. The study has important policy implications in terms of prudent public debt management and fiscal management for the sampled SSA economies.     

Stakeholder engagement for value-based banking: The case of Malaysian Islamic banks

This study explores the practices of stakeholder engagement (SE) in Malaysian Islamic banks. In 2017, Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) introduced the Value-Based Intermediation (VBI) framework, with the aim of promoting a more sustainable and responsible banking system in the country. Among others, the VBI framework requires Islamic banks to adopt a stakeholder-driven approach to their business operations, which involves understanding and responding to the needs and expectations of their stakeholders. Within this context, we apply a content analysis of the annual and sustainability reports of all stand-alone Islamic banks in Malaysia to document the changes in the banks' quality of SE after the introduction of the VBI. The content analysis is guided by a new index that we construct, termed as the Stakeholder Engagement Quality Index (SEQI), which covers four dimensions of SE process: the purpose, stakeholder mapping, scope and approach to the engagement. Our results indicate that the SE quality significantly increases overall and for the third (i.e., scope of SE) and fourth (i.e., SE approach) dimensions subsequent to the VBI. Additionally, in terms of bank types, we find that the SEQI score is higher for commercial Islamic banks than development Islamic banks in the post-VBI period. Despite such improvements, our study alerts policymakers that there are areas that need further attention. Among others, these include integrating SE into the banks' internal managerial functions and encouraging active stakeholder participation in the design and implementation of the engagement itself.     

Another Opportunity Lost? Victorian Labor's Enactment of Sustainability, 1999–2010

‘Sustainability’ provides the dominant frame for environmental policy debate, even though there is considerable debate to as to what sustainability is, why is it needed, and how can it be progressed. From 1999 through to 2010, Victoria was governed by Australian Labor Party (ALP) led governments that, at times, actively pursued the goal of sustainable development. This culminated in the stated ambition for Victoria to be ‘world leaders in environmental sustainability debate and practice’. This paper explores the way in which sustainability was enacted by Victorian Labor while in government. The evidence indicates that the potential of Victorian Labor's vision was never realized, and that it failed to significantly reform the neoliberal policy settings it inherited.     

Blending issues and stakeholders: in pursuit of the elusive synergy

Two separate frameworks have existed for the analysis of social predicaments in which businesses play a role: issues management and stakeholder management. In this paper, we argue that the chasm dividing these two literatures is artificial, and potentially obstructive to the advancement of our knowledge of the position of business in contemporary societies. The position we take in the present paper is that all social predicaments have an issues side as well as a stakeholder side and that a dual focus on both issues and stakeholders is therefore essential to understanding the evolution of these predicaments and crucial to managerial dealings with these issues. We present an integrative co-evolutionary framework, explaining the dynamics between issues and stakeholders in all consecutive stages of a predicament's evolution. The framework proposes a new way of thinking about issues and stakeholders, as such facilitates a deeper understanding of how the social environment of business is constituted, and offers new insights for the practical management of issues and stakeholders.     

Evidence for Tackling the Complexities of Water Governance

Water policy and management decisions are increasingly challenged by uncertainties associated with climate change, changing demographics, and social values. This article discusses how research by water governance scholars supports and complements Rob M. Skinner's arguments about the complexities of water planning and policy making and the importance of stakeholder engagement. Specifically, it focuses on how this decision‐making context shapes the ways in which evidence is used and understood in water governance. To conclude, this article draws lessons for practitioners about the limitations of using evidence in water governance.     

Political Ontology and Institutional Design in Montesquieu and Rousseau

Historians of political thought have been puzzled by Montesquieu's simultaneous appeals to the diversity of human practices and eternal norms of justice. Isaiah Berlin famously referred to this as an impassable “contradiction” burdening his work. Careful examination of Rousseau's appropriations from and developments on Montesquieu, however, reveal that these observations are not merely reconcilable—they provide a fruitful way to approach legislation and constitution drafting. This is accomplished by understanding his employment of the principle of transcendent constrained indeterminacy.     

A Multidimensional Reputation Barometer for Public Agencies: A Validated Instrument

Reputation is of growing interest for the study of public bureaucracies, but a measurement that can discern between the subdimensions of reputation and is validated on real-life audiences has remained elusive. The authors deductively build, test, and cross-validate a survey instrument through two surveys of 2,100 key stakeholders of the European Chemicals Agency, the European Union chemicals regulator. This empirical tool measures an agency's reputation and its building blocks. This scale represents an important contribution to reputation literature, as it allows scholars to distinguish and measure which aspects of reputation public organizations are “known for” and build their claim to authority on, as well as how the profiles of public organizations differ. The authors find that direct stakeholder contact with the agency is necessary for stakeholders to be able to evaluate the separate dimensions of reputation independently. Evidence for Practice

• This study equips practitioners with a reputation barometer tailored to the public sector. It allows them to measure the reputation of their organization, in a differentiated fashion, among different stakeholder groups.
• While public organizations increasingly engage in reputation management activities, a potential caveat that emerges from our exercise is that managers might be steering in non-astute directions. While our study shows that, as for private actors, “performance matters,” procedural and moral aspects also weigh heavily in the eyes of stakeholders when it comes to public regulators.
• To secure a positive organizational image and the authority crucial for public agencies to operate, the performance management turn in the public sector may need to be supplemented by an enhanced organizational attention to procedural and moral aspects.

     

How can Public Professional Services be Restored in a Weak State? Options for Animal Health in Congo's South Kivu

How does one deal with a shortcoming in a public service when even a state “pocket of effectiveness” is unlikely to fill it directly? In the Belgian colonial era, South Kivu Province in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo had a vibrant animal production system, which then was shattered by successive wars. The regeneration of Kivu's livestock industry is greatly constrained by the unreliability of the province's state and private animal health services, which have become commercialized and are unable to overcome the asymmetric information problem inherent to the professions and provide the trustworthy effectiveness farmers need to use them effectively. The Congolese state is unlikely to be able to fill this gap itself. Nonetheless, it can be an architect of solutions to the problem. We were able to identify in the local institutional repertoire at least four possible ways policy‐makers could use non‐governmental organizations to provide missing trustworthiness to the market. This conclusion is hopeful for places with development potential that have weak states and imperfect markets. © 2017 International Livestock Research Institute. Public Administration and Development published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.