Institutions and Economic Performance: The Use and Abuse of Culture in New Institutional Economics

Important research programs within New Institutional Economics advance culturalist arguments to explain failures of economic development. Focusing on the work of Douglass C. North and Avner Greif, this article argues that such arguments rely on an essentialist conception of culture that is both historically inaccurate and analytically misleading. Greif’s work in particular rests on a selective use of empirical data that ultimately distorts the deductive models that are at the core of his work. As a result, both scholars use culture to account for outcomes that are more adequately explained as the product of social conflict and political struggles—struggles in which culture plays a far more contingent and destabilizing role than the one they attribute to it. What is needed, I argue, is to link arguments about the persistence of inefficient institutions with a sociologically informed conception of culture as an ensemble of resources that enhance rather than constrain the scope of individual agency. To come to terms with the effects of culture on institutional formation and change it is necessary to replace the essentialism articulated by North and Greif with a strategic-instrumentalist view in which culture is compatible with a wide spectrum of economic behaviors, individual actions, and thus institutional trajectories.

关于实施经理股票期权制的思考

发达国家的成功实践证明 ,经理股票期权制对于激励企业经营者、减少代理成本、促进稳健经营等具有积极作用。在我国采用期权方式构建对企业经营者的激励机制 ,其改革方向无疑是正确的。但是 ,由于市场的不完善、国企产权的不清晰、相关法律的不健全以及技术设计的不成熟等现实困难 ,使得实施期权制还存在不少障碍 ,还有许多问题有待思考和解决     

西部大开发法制环境创建中的警察管理

西部大开发,法制是保障.西部大开发法制环境创建中,警察管理应把维护社会稳定和民族团结、惩治毒品违法犯罪、建设较高素质的警察力量作为重点,自觉地服务于西部大开发.     

网络环境下的信息管理学教育

目前我国的信息管理学教育中存在着教育目标不明确、专业设置和课程设置不合理、教学模式和教学方法单一等问题 ,为适应网络时代对信息管理人员提出的新的要求 ,信息管理学教育必须进行课程及教学方法的改革     

高校图书馆过刊计算机管理述论

高校图书馆过刊实行计算机管理的重要性在于 :可以方便读者查询与索取资料 ;有利于图书馆员进行过刊科学管理 ;有利于实现文献资源共享。过刊实行计算机管理的主要步骤是 :(1)进行过刊的科学排架 ;(2 )做好硬件与软件的选择 ;(3)建立过刊数据库 ;(4 )实现过刊数据库的网络化     

坚持对上对下的统一 始终代表人民的根本利益——学习“三个代表”思想的体会

实现最广大人民的根本利益 ,要求我们把对上级负责和对群众负责统一起来。但是在实践中两者的统一却存在着一些问题 ,其根源在于监督机制、干部管理体制等存在缺陷。要实现对上对下的统一 ,必须建立有效的权力制约与监督机制 ,加快干部选拔任用制度的改革 ,大力加强法制建设 ,加强世界观、人生观和价值观的教育     

Jewish joke telling in Muttersprache Mameloschn: performing queer intervention on the German stage

This essay explores the central role of Jewish joke telling in Sasha Marianna Salzmann’s play Muttersprache Mameloschn (first performed in 2012). Subversively revealing the problematic of essentializing cultural, national, and even sexual identity, Jewish joke telling figures as a performance of social and political resistance and disidentification in this play. Engaging with Jack Halberstam’s queer epistemology of failure and José Esteban Muñoz’s theory of queer disidentification, I propose that the act of Jewish joke telling by a young lesbian plays out as a new queer project of intervention in this play that confronts both antisemitism and culturally positioned sexual hegemony.     

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.”     

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.