Why Be Accountable? Exploring Voluntary Accountability of Australian Private Ancillary Funds

The aim of this paper is to consider why Private Ancillary Funds (PAFs), endowed philanthropic foundations with no public reporting requirements, engage in accountability in its various forms. This exploratory, qualitative study reports on perspectives on accountability from 10 semi‐structured interviews with PAF managers and/or trustees from three Australian states. Through the lens of March and Olsen's (2011) logics of action and Karsten's (2015) typology of motivational forms for voluntary accountability, findings show that although logics of appropriateness and consequentiality explain many reasons why PAFs engage in voluntary accountability, some reasons do not fit comfortably within either logic. The findings challenge conceptions embedded in much non‐profit accountability literature that motivations for and purposes of accountability are linked with sustainability and survival. By examining this subset of non‐profit organisations subject to limited regulatory accountability, a clearer understanding of motivations for voluntary accountability is achieved.     

Interpersonal Relationships and the Development of Behavior Problems in Adolescents in Urban Schools: A Longitudinal Study

The purpose of this study was to investigate the trajectories of behavioral problems for a sample of predominately minority adolescents (n = 212, 91% African-American and/or Hispanic, 45% boys, 55% girls) in a large, urban school district and to determine the impact of parental and peer relationships, gender, and risk status on their development during middle and high school. Multi-level growth modeling was the primary statistical procedure used to track internalizing and externalizing behavioral problems across time. Results indicated that behavioral problems as rated by students’ teachers declined significantly for both boys and girls, a finding that is in direct contrast to previous studies of adolescent behavior. The quality of parental relationships was a strong predictor of both types of behavior whereas the quality of peer relationships predicted only internalizing behavioral symptoms. These findings suggest that behavioral trajectories may be somewhat unique for this population underscoring the need for additional research in this area. The findings also have implications for intervening with children and youth who display behavioral problems during critical developmental periods.     

Equity in Federal Contracting: Examining the Link between Minority Representation and Federal Procurement Decisions

The federal government increasingly relies on nongovernmental organizations for procuring goods and services. This long‐term trend presents a significant challenge for administrators because it risks the egalitarian values of democracy by further distancing administrative action from direct, participative, democratic oversight. The authors put forward a theory of representative bureaucracy as a way to reconcile democracy with the reality of the contemporary policy process in which unelected officials are the principal decision makers. The theory is tested in the domain of federal procurement, specifically within the contract award decisions of 60 federal agencies over three years. The authors argue that increased minority representation in leadership positions results in an increased proportion of federal contracts awarded to small minority‐owned firms.     

Intellectual property (IP) management: organizational processes and structures, and the role of IP donations

This paper examines intellectual property (IP) management in U.S. companies and addresses three questions: What are typical sources of IP? How do companies manage IP? What role do donations of IP play in IP management? We used in-depth interviews and an on-line survey to gather data. We found that firms develop their IP position from a wide variety of sources such as joint ventures, acquisitions, and consulting contracts, but internal development is still the primary source of IP. Organizationally, three structural archetypes of IP management were identified: a centralized structure, a purely decentralized IP structure and a compromise structure involving a divisional assignment where a multi-business unit or division committee oversees IP. IP donations clearly do not appear to be a major phenomenon at the present time. Our survey results suggest that tax benefits are an important driver and that recent tax law changes have diminished the incentives to donate IP. The uncertainty of tax benefits and the costs associated with IP valuation appear to be the main disincentives.     

Psychology and legal change

This article takes stock of one aspect of psychologically based empirical jurisprudence-its role in legal change over the last decade. It assesses the ways in which the increased involvement of psychology in the legal process has influenced and affected the nature and direction of legal change. While acknowledging very real and tangible successes, it also identifies several problem areas, ones whose significance may grow in light of an increasingly unsympathetic, conservative judiciary. The direction of psychology and law, as an applied academic discipline, and the future of empirically based legal change are also examined.This article is based on an Invited Address to Division 41, APA Annual Convention, New Orleans, August, 1989.     

LOCAL INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT GROUPS: PERSPECTIVES AND PROFILES

Local industrial development groups (LIDGs) are often among the most visible organizations involved in community economic development. LIDGs annually spend billions of dollars directly or indirectly in various promotional and community improvement efforts. Yet relatively little is known about their organizational forms, their operating strategies, or their real impact on the economic development of communities. The study reported here was undertaken by researchers from three academic backgrounds in order to capture a rich, comprehensive view of this organizational type. In this paper, we discuss the research perspectives which informed our overall approach to the study, and subsequently, we present and discuss a preliminary profile of LIDGs, based on our recent national survey.     

Neutrality,negativity, or both? A reply to Wattenberg

Although there are indications that the two major parties in the U.S. have come to have new meaning for many citizens in the 1980s, Wattenberg's data do provide convincing support for his general argument on declining party salience. The following article attempts to clarify the meaning of this trend and to show that a lack of confidence in political parties as representative institutions is indeed an obstacle to the restoration of partisan attachments at the mass level. Both CPS survey data and depth interview materials are utilized in an effort to understand more fully the complex relationship between the American public and its party system.     

Rorty's Poetic Politics

In reading Rorty as political theorists we must separate his critique of epistemology from his advocacy of a new style of philosophy. If we concentrate on the detail and presuppositions of the latter, we will find insufficient reason to grant that his political project is coherent or that it derives any support from his attack on 'Enlightenment' philosophy. We will see that historicist accounts can never reasonably compel belief; that no-one (save the epistemologist manque craving a role) could accept that there is a compelling social need for poetic and literary exclamations; and that great men cannot be allowed to set our political agenda.