Fostering Constructive Action by Peers and Bystanders in Organizations and Communities

Peers and bystanders play important roles in organizational and community conflict management. Bystanders often learn relevant information and have opportunities to act in ways that can affect three of the basic functions of a conflict management system (CMS.) They can help (or not help) to identify, assess, and manage behaviors that the organization or community deems to be “unacceptable.” Examples in which bystanders play important roles include sexual and racial harassment, safety violations, unethical research, national security violations and insider threats, cyber‐bullying and cyber‐sabotage, violence, fraud, theft, intimidation and retaliation, and gross negligence. Bystanders often are a missing link in conflict systems. For the purposes of this article, I define peers and bystanders as people who observe or learn about unacceptable behavior by others, but who are not the relevant supervisors, or who knowingly engage in planning or executing that behavior. I define CMS managers as all those people, including line managers, who have responsibility for managing conflicts. Conflict managers face many challenges in fostering constructive behavior from bystanders. The interests of bystanders may or may not coincide with the interests of conflict systems managers in an organization or community. Bystanders often have multiple, idiosyncratic, and conflicting interests, and experience painful dilemmas. In addition, peers and bystanders, and their contexts – often differ greatly from each other. Blanket rules about how all bystanders should behave, such as requirements for mandatory reporting, are often ineffective or lead to perverse results. Bystanders are regularly equated with “do‐nothings,” in the popular press. In real life, however, helpful bystander actions are common. Many bystanders report a wide variety of constructive initiatives, including private, informal interventions. In this article, I report on forty‐five years of observations on bystanders in many milieus. I present what bystanders have said are the reasons that they did not – or did – take action, and what can be learned to help organizations and communities to support bystanders to be more effective when faced with unacceptable behavior.     

Here be monsters: a choreomaniac's companion to the danse macabre

Consider this a vade mecum: an invitation to “walk with me” through more or less uncanny terrains of worlds in the making in search, of(f) course, of monsters. The search will be delving into the areas of “creepypasta:” pieces of cursed prose and pictures that circulate online, waiting to contaminate and possess the next reader. Using a theoretical framework of posthuman and feminist theory, not least the work done by Jacques Derrida and Donna Haraway, this vade mecum asks what it might mean to engage ethically with that which is not supposed to exist, but which haunts us nonetheless. In other words: what does it mean to move, live and engage with spectres in digital times?     

Access and control of agro-biotechnology: Bt cotton,ecological change and risk in China

This article argues that if the introduction of genetically modified crops (GM crops) in developing countries is to be successful, we can and should not evade questions of access and control of technology. It implies probing into the experiences, perceptions and understanding of GM crops by the prime user: the farmer. Exactly in these respects the scholarly literature is remarkably silent. We know little about farmers' experiences and perceptions of GM crops' potential risks and benefits. This is evident when concentrating on a major GM crop – Bt cotton – and studying this in the context of China, its second largest producer in the world. Based on the results of a large survey, we demonstrate that Chinese farmers' awareness (‘having heard of’) and their understanding (‘being able to explain’) of Bt cotton is low. This may lead to ill-informed, distorted risk perceptions and a general inability to relate agricultural production problems to the specific nature of transgenic cotton cultivation. A great majority of the farmers find that the Chinese seed market was liberalised too early, in turn leading to a high incidence of ‘stealth transgenics’ or illegal seeds, the undermining of farmers' trust in private institutions, and a weakened biosafety regime. This finding points to the need for continued state intervention in the seed market, particularly in a developing context. Finally, we have discovered that farmers report a significantly lower reduction in pesticide use by Bt cotton than found in other studies. As suggested by recent research, we suspect that the higher pesticide use is necessary to control secondary pests – i.e. pests other than the cotton bollworm. We present empirical evidence that Chinese farmers perceive a substantive increase in secondary pests after Bt cotton was introduced.     

日本外国移民管理经验及对中国的启示

日本的外国移民管理机制比较完善,形成了以《出入境管理及难民认定法》和《住民基本台账法》等法律为基础的法律法规体系和以法务省、外务省、厚生劳动省等部门为核心的行政管理体系。日本在外国移民管理方面经验丰富,一些做法值得中国借鉴。     

Perhaps this time it's different: ideas and interests in shaping international responses to financial crises

The experience of the recent two decades of financial crises shows that donor countries and international financial institutions (IFIs) can respond to a crisis in a peripheral open economy by either of two crisis management strategies: either they can impose harsh conditionality to fix the domestic economy and prevent future moral hazard problems, or they can provide last-resort credit to restore market confidence. In some cases, the crisis management strategy changes as the crisis evolves. What are the factors that determine the choice of key donor countries and IFIs? This article traces the processes by which the USA and the International Monetary Fund designed the crisis management strategy in respect to the Asian crisis, and how Germany and the European Central Bank designed the response to the eurozone crisis, in order to understand how ideas regarding the causes and solutions of a financial crisis interact with the interests of key donor countries. The article argues that in both cases ideas and interests are mutually constituted, but in each case the mechanism that linked ideas and interests was different: whereas in the Asian case US interests led to policy innovation and experimentation and to a change in the crisis management strategy, in the European case ideas played a greater role in shaping German interests. The article explains this difference on the basis of the lessons learned by IFIs from the Asian crisis, which were then implemented in the eurozone case.     

NPM Reforms in Napoleonic Countries: A Comparative Study of Management Accounting Innovations in Greek and Italian Municipalities

This is a comparative study of the rationale and effects of management accounting innovations in Greek and Italian municipalities, as part of the NPM reform in the public sector. This article aims to understand the extent of adoption of accounting innovations in Greek and Italian municipalities, and the factors affecting the specific techniques in use. The study reports on a survey based on medium-sized and large Italian and Greek municipalities, targeted at public municipalities’ accountants, the users of accounting techniques. The study identifies the intended purposes of NPM reform and, particularly, management accounting innovations, analyzes a set of factors that affect the implementation of management accounting technologies, and discusses determinants and features of such innovation on a comparative perspective.     

Quality Management in Public-Sector Organizations: Evidence from Six EU Countries

Although there is considerable evidence for the hypothesis that an efficient use of management techniques is the key to a good public service delivery, a lot of studies come to the conclusion that there is only partial, reluctant implementation or even a general lack of the use of such techniques by public managers. This paper examines the determinants for the use of quality management techniques in public sector organizations from six EU countries. It turns out that especially more organizational autonomy and result control appear to be of importance while, surprisingly, the combination of these variables leads to negative results.     

Agenda and Public Policy: Evidence From Chile

Based on Kingdon’s model and the punctuated equilibrium theory, this article analyzes the process of four Chilean public policies from 1990 to 2013. Evidence was collected from 205 interviews, official documents, 3,905 press clippings, and academic literature. Grounded theory was employed to analyze interviews. The analysis shows a tacit alliance between power and expert knowledge, that presidential motivation seems to be a key factor for an idea to be included in government agenda, that Chile’s policy-making process is rather elitist, and that its characteristics coincide with the “inside access model of agenda building.”     

Is Managerial Work in the Public and Private Sectors Really “Different”? A Comparative Study of Managerial Work Activities

This article aims to discern the extent to which managerial work is similar and different in the public and private sectors. Using propositions and structured categories for describing what managers do, this article compares results of an observational study conducted in the Canadian public sector with similar studies from the private sector. Through a comparison of work type, hours, location, activities, and contact patterns, this research finds few differences in managerial work activities between the two sectors, despite contextual and situational differences. Possible explanations are explored, implications of the findings are discussed, and future research directions are proposed.     

How to Make the Mix Matter: A Case Study of Post-Transformational Leadership in Hybrid Public Management

The purpose of this article is to explain how public managers can influence the mix of institutional logics in a process of organizational change. To do this, the concept of post-transformational leadership is related to institutional logics. The article is based on a case study of the Danish Crime Prevention Council. The study shows how post-transformative leaders are urged to move from strategies of collaboration to strategies of manipulation, hypocrisy, and the hijacking of institutional logics.