Performance Implications of Public Managers’ Goal Prioritization: An Empirical Test of the Link between Internal Management and Organizational Performance

Most studies on the goals-performance nexus focus on the implications of goal design. In public organizations with multiple goals, managerial goal prioritization can, however, in itself play a decisive role for performance. This study examines the effects of managerial goal prioritization and employee commitment on organizational performance. Analyses of parallel surveys of principals and teachers in higher secondary education and archival data on school performance show that principals’ goal prioritization is positively related to high school performance. The findings thus indicate that public managers should concentrate not only on how they design goals, but also on how they prioritize them.     

ASEAN At 50: the global political economy’s contribution to durability

Why has the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) proved so durable as a regional organisation given the many challenges it has faced since its inception in 1967? This analysis makes use of an historical institutionalist approach. It shows how the global political economy, through the injection of aid and investment and the development of production networks and increased trade, generated a generally positive regional economic environment that encouraged cooperation. It also provided the resources for the gradual institutionalisation of ASEAN and the expansion of its reach through the establishment of associated regional organisations. The result was that these factors, in combination, contributed to ASEAN’s staying power.     

A Study of Transnational Communication Among Iranian Migrant Women in Australia

Through the analysis of 25 interviews with Iranian migrant women in Australia, this study shows how living in different communicative environments can affect transnational communication practices. The case of these Iranian transnational families indicates that the digital divide, in terms of information and communication technology (ICT) infrastructure and communication capacity, may affect the technological quality of ICT-mediated communication. However, the digital divide does not significantly affect the frequency of communication among these families. The findings illustrate that the Iranian migrants in Australia and their family members overseas developed innovative communication practices and went to great lengths to maintain “ordinary” family interactions across national borders.     

The EU and the Global Order: Contingent Liberalism

Abstract

Politicians, diplomats and analysts commonly assume that commitment to multilateralism and liberal norms is part of the EU’s very DNA. Increasingly, however, the EU’s commitment to the liberal global order is more selective. We demonstrate the shift to a more contingent liberalism by examining the EU’s recent record in relation to four different challenges: international trade; US leadership; Russian actions in the eastern neighbourhood; and security in the Middle East. We speculate on what this may portend for the EU’s self-identity, European interests and the integrity of the prevailing global order.     

Contestation and Transformation. Final Thoughts on the Liberal International Order

Abstract

The liberal international order, the inseparable mix of US geopolitical power and ideational project of organising international relations along normative frameworks such as internationalism, institutionalism and democracy, is reeling under the pressure of profound systemic changes such as greater interconnectedness and multipolarity. Predictions abound that increasing great power competition, most visibly at play in geographical areas of contested orders, will eventually tear it down. However, even if major actors – the US included – display a selective, irregular and often instrumental commitment to the liberal order, they are still repositioning themselves in that order and not outside of it. In addition, conflict is not the default outcome of order contestation, as hybrid forms of governance are possible even in troubled regions. No doubt, the world of tomorrow will be less American-shaped and less liberal, but transformation is a more plausible future than collapse for the liberal order.     

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.     

Flying bananas: small producer tactics and the (un)making of Philippine banana export chains

Global production network (GPN) analysts argue that workers actively contribute to the shaping of GPNs through different forms of agency. In this contribution I extend this argument to the tactical agency of small producers. By focusing on the phenomenon of side-selling among Filipino banana contract farmers, I show that these tactics have contributed to the emergence of alternative trade networks that undermined traditional lead firm behaviour and inspired new struggles over chain governance. However, as a diverse and ambiguous group of growers engages in this tactical agency, predominantly as small capital, they also contribute to the continuation of broader dynamics of capital accumulation and labour exploitation.     

Plantation rubber,land grabbing and social-property transformation in southern Laos

This paper critically examines theories of accumulation, dispossession and exclusion for analyzing the agrarian transformations that result from contemporary large-scale land acquisitions across the Global South. Building upon Marx's primitive accumulation, Harvey's accumulation by dispossession and Hall et al.'s Powers of Exclusion, conceptual lenses are developed through which to examine how land grabs transform property and social relationships of resource-based production. I examine the concession of 10,000 hectares by the central government of Laos to a Vietnamese corporation for extracting timber and planting rubber in the southern province of Attapeu. This acquisition has excluded farmers from land and resources that constituted their primary sources of (re)production, reconfigured rural property relations, altered the peasant relationship to land and produced new exploitative forms of wage labor.     

Chinese state capitalism and neomercantilism in the contemporary food regime: contradictions,continuity and change

ABSTRACT

A significant proportion of critical agri-food literature has, to date, focused on the uneven relations of power between the Global North and the Global South, and the neoliberal characteristics of the corporate food regime. This literature has often overlooked the nuances in varieties of capitalism, particularly in East Asia. China is re-emerging as a powerful state actor in an increasingly multipolar global food system. It is also an important hub of capital, facilitating agribusiness mergers and acquisitions, as well as new East–South and South–South flows of agri-food trade, technology and capital. This paper aims to contribute to understanding state-led capitalism in China and neomercantilist strategies in the agri-food sector. The paper provides a critical analysis of a case study of China's state owned agri-food and chemical companies ‘going global’. It contends that the current food regime is in a period of transition or interregnum – a period of fluidity separating the continuity of successive regimes. Arguably, the analytical contours of a contemporary food regime in transition cannot be adequately comprehended without recognising the incipient importance of state-led capitalism and neomercantilism, and how contemporary socio-political and economic dynamics are reshaping relations of power in the global political economy of food.     

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.