Stemming the downturn: How ambidexterity and public policy influence firm performance stability during economic crises

A key question confronting policy makers during economic crises is how they can support firms to maintain their performance levels until the economic storm has passed. The present study bridges insights from the ambidexterity and public policy literatures to examine how firm-internal responses (that is, ambidexterity) and external public policy incentives (that is, demand-pull policies) affect the stability of firms’ performance in a recessionary economic context. Using data from private German renewable energy firms at a time following the global financial crisis, we find that only firms with low ambidexterity achieve performance stability in light of demand-pull policies. This research draws attention to the relevance of stability as a policy-relevant performance measure during times of economic crises. Further, we suggest that greater insight into the interplay of managerial and political factors is necessary to enable policy makers to support the stability of certain industries during crises.     

Analytical Paradigms: The Epistemological Distances between Scientists, Policy Makers, and the Public

The effective use of evidence and its resultant knowledge is increasingly recognized as critical in risk analysis. This, in turn, has led to a growing concern over issues of epistemology in risk communication, and, in particular, interest in how knowledge is constructed and employed by the key players in risk--scientists, policy makers, and the public. This article uses a critical theoretical approach to explore how evidence is recognized and validated, and how limits are placed on knowledge by scientists, policy makers, and the public. It brings together developments in the sociology of science, policy and policy development, public understandings of science, and risk communication and analysis to explicate the differing forms of rationality employed by each group. The work concludes that each group employs different, although equally legitimate, forms of rationality when evaluating evidence and generating knowledge around risky environment and health issues. Scientists, policy makers, and the public employ scientific, political, and social rationality, respectively. These differing forms of rationality reflect underlying epistemological distances from which can develop considerable misunderstandings and misinterpretations.     

Major Wind Energy & the Interface of Policy and Regulation: A Study of Welsh NSIPs

This article examines how sub-national policy is applied in consenting decisions for major wind energy infrastructure. The study focuses on the Welsh tier of governance and the perspective of the public, building on existing work on ‘territorial politics’ and public participation. It looks explicitly at the regulatory stage of decision-making, which is critical to understanding multi-level governance contexts for energy infrastructure. Two cases of ‘Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects’ (NSIPs) in the UK are assessed and findings show how conflict is fuelled by the ways in which different tiers of policy and regulation interact.     

Conundrums of Urban Planning in a Global Context: The Case of the Frankfurt Airport

The article reviews the complexity of urban policy formulation in Frankfurt, Germany, where officials are trying to enlarge the international airport to stay competitive in international air transportation and meet the challenges of global business operations. This case study analyzes an elaborate mediation process that helped the formal decision-makers avert the violence threatened by anti-globalization and environmentalist protesters. Although some legal challenges loom ahead, a majority of Frankfurt residents support the new airport expansion. The Frankfurt experience will help other communities minimize the confrontation between urban policy makers, corporate business elites, and citizen groups that are concerned with issues of public health and clean environment.     

Cultural Values,Trust, and Benefit‐Risk Perceptions of Hydraulic Fracturing: A Comparative Analysis of Policy Elites and the General Public

Hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”) has recently become a very intensely debated process for extracting oil and gas. Supporters argue that fracking provides positive economic benefits and energy security and offers a decreased reliance on coal‐based electricity generation. Detractors claim that the fracking process may harm the environment as well as place a strain on local communities that experience new fracking operations. This study utilizes a recently conducted survey distributed to a sample of policy elites and the general public in Arkansas and Oregon to examine the role of cultural value predispositions and trust in shaping the perceptions of risks and benefits associated with fracking. Findings indicate that cultural values influence both trust and benefit‐risk perceptions of fracking for both policy elites and the general public. More specifically, we found that trust in information from various sources is derived from the intrinsic values held by an individual, which in turn impacts perceptions of related benefits and risks. We also found that while the overall pattern of relationships is similar, trust plays a larger role in the formulation of attitudes for policy elites than for the general public. We discuss the implications of the mediating role of trust in understanding value‐driven benefit‐risk perceptions, as well as the disparate role of trust between policy elites and the general public in the context of the policy‐making process for both theory and practice.     

Perspectives on Public Policy Implementation in Developing World Context: The Case of Ghana’s Health Insurance Scheme

Public Organization Review - This paper examines factors that affect public policy implementation in developing world context, with some evidence from Ghana. It looks at how public policy design;...     

Preis und Qualität als Dimensionen von Kompromissoptionen

This article deals with the question of how consumers cope with decision situations in which a compromise product exists. We examine how the compromise product's position influences choice probabilities. The products we test differ in price and overall quality rating. We present theories, which provide hypotheses on the influence of such types of compromise products and we conduct a new experiment to gain insights into the effects of a compromise product on choice probabilities. The results of the study show that even compromise products with a poor quality/price relation are frequently chosen. The loss in choice probability of the existing products depends on the price category the products belong to.     

Inventory Rationing for Multiple Class Demand under Continuous Review

We consider how a firm should ration inventory to multiple classes in a stochastic demand environment with partial, class‐dependent backlogging where the firm incurs a fixed setup cost when ordering from its supplier. We present an infinite‐horizon, average cost criterion Markov decision problem formulation for the case with zero lead times. We provide an algorithm that determines the optimal rationing policy, and show how to find the optimal base‐stock reorder policy. Numerical studies indicate that the optimal policy is similar to that given by the equivalent deterministic problem and relies on tracking both the current inventory and the rate that backorder costs are accumulating. Our study of the case of non‐zero lead time shows that a heuristic combining the optimal, zero lead time policy with an allocation policy based on a single‐period profit management problem is effective.     

Knowledge management in a community setting using action research: a case study of Lumpaya community,Nakorn Pathom Province,Thailand

This study promoted self-learning and participatory learning processes in the Lumpaya Community of Thailand to facilitate the development of local public policy to reduce the problem of poverty. The process used action research utilizing practice and learning from that practice. This research serves as an example of how a human resource development (HRD) intervention, knowledge management, can be applied in a context that extends beyond individual organizational boundaries to strengthen the community.     

Dynamics of Public Policy: Determinants of Policymaking and Implementation in Bangladesh

Socio-economic development achievements in Bangladesh have been characterized as a development paradox. The policymaking process in Bangladesh is seen as the outcome of incentives created by patronage politics as opposed to the compulsion for the government to play an effective developmental role. A number of factors strongly affect the public policy formulation and implementation process—factors such as the assistance and extent of pressure and persuasion from international development partners, and the capacity to mobilize and manage resources. The political commitment at the highest level is found to be the most critical determinant element of policy formulation and implementation in Bangladesh.     

The More You Give,the More You Get? The Impact of Corporate Political Activity on the Value of Government Contracts

Firms have been relying on corporate political activity (CPA) to achieve access and to affect public policy change for decades. Most research on CPA and public policy outcomes has implicitly assumed that access afforded by CPA results in an either‐ or (dichotomous) policy outcome such as votes or election outcomes. Based on recent research on how CPA can be a strategic signal to government agencies, however, it is possible that CPA may in fact, have a linear association with public policy outcomes as opposed to merely a dichotomous one, and we explore this relationship in the unique public policy context of government contract awards. We specifically analyze how higher levels of CPA impact the financial value of government contracts awarded to firms. Utilizing the S&P 1500 sample for 16 years (1997–2012) we find that CPA has a one to one association with the value of contract awards, indicating that CPA and public policy outcomes can be linked in ways that motivate firms to continuously invest in CPA, to maximize their political rents. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of this finding in light of extant research on CPA and its direct impact on public policy outcomes.     

Decision analysis and strategic policy formulation

The role of decision analysis in the context of business policy is explored with the aid of a case study of a reorganization situation. This case study provides insights about the implementation of decision analysis in the policy field and also indicates guidelines for managers to follow in adapting the decision analysis approach to the resolution of the policy formulation problem.     

Financial reporting in Europe: Prospects for research

This paper is a commentary on the future of financial reporting in Europe and on how research into accounting issues can be relevant to policy makers. Combining scholarship in accounting with scholarship in management can offer insight into national and global issues where accounting communicates information that affects managerial decisions at the microeconomic level and political decisions at the macroeconomic level. The paper cites examples of recent research in financial reporting and points to the current work plans of leading policy makers to illustrate the potential for researchers to influence policy directions. The context of financial reporting, nationally and globally, and the data available in the public domain, provide continued opportunities for researchers investigating accounting issues in the private sector and the public sector.     

Getting to the Helm: Women in Leadership in Federal Regulation

Why is it important for women to hold leadership positions in organizations? If it is important for women to hold leadership positions in organizations, how do women get into such positions? Both public administration research and organizational research provide answers to these questions. However, the integration of these two bodies of literature remains limited. This study joins public administration scholarship on representative bureaucracy and management scholarship on women in leadership to hypothesize and test institutional, organizational, and political explanations for women’s attainment of leadership positions together in one model. This study examines how women get into upper-level leadership positions in 12 federal regulatory organizations over more than 20 years of time. Findings suggests that women are more likely to gain access to leadership positions when the dominant political ideology is democratic and in agencies that work in feminine policy contexts, are younger, and where the risk of failure is higher.     

Strategic planning for water—A case history

Choosing a management policy in a developing economy for public utility systems involves consideration of a host of factors and delineation of some strategic issues. In order to make the management policy operational, a formal approach to system planning is necessary. This paper develops an approach whose primary aim is to assess the current status of the system and the environment, to identify and categorize the management problems, and then to break up the problems into manageable components to find out appropriate solution strategies. It is hoped that such an approach will jointly clarify the perceptions of how management techniques can be gainfully used and practised in managing large scale public utility systems.     

A Value Measure for Public‐Sector Enterprise Risk Management: A TSA Case Study

This article presents a public value measure that can be used to aid executives in the public sector to better assess policy decisions and maximize value to the American people. Using Transportation Security Administration (TSA) programs as an example, we first identify the basic components of public value. We then propose a public value account to quantify the outcomes of various risk scenarios, and we determine the certain equivalent of several important TSA programs. We illustrate how this proposed measure can quantify the effects of two main challenges that government organizations face when conducting enterprise risk management: (1) short‐term versus long‐term incentives and (2) avoiding potential negative consequences even if they occur with low probability. Finally, we illustrate how this measure enables the use of various tools from decision analysis to be applied in government settings, such as stochastic dominance arguments and certain equivalent calculations. Regarding the TSA case study, our analysis demonstrates the value of continued expansion of the TSA trusted traveler initiative and increasing the background vetting for passengers who are afforded expedited security screening.     

Risk Communication as Government Agency Organizational Practice

The dynamics of organizational risk communication is an understudied topic in risk research. This article investigates how public officials at six government agencies in Sweden understand and relate to risk communication and its uses in the context of agency organizational work on policy and regulation. Qualitative interviews were used to explore the practitioners’ views on some key topics in the academic literature on risk communication. A main finding is that there is little consensus on what the goals of risk communication are; if, and how, uncertainty should be communicated; and what role is to be played by transparency in risk communication. However, the practitioners agree that dissemination (top down) to the public of robust scientific and expert knowledge is a crucial element. Dialogue and participation is used mainly with other agencies and elite stakeholders with whom agencies collaborate to implement policy goals. Dialogue with the public on issues of risk is very limited. Some implications of the findings for the practice of risk communication by government agencies are suggested.     

中国农村公共支出及其绩效分析——基于农民收入增长和城乡收入差距的经验研究

本文运用1978～2004年的数据,采用多变量回归和Granger因果检验方法对农村公共支出、农民收入增长以及城乡收入差距之间的关系进行实证研究。结果显示,国家财政的农村支出对农民收入增长起到了一定的促进作用,但由于公共支出的管理、运用效率低下,其作用在统计上并不十分显著;从支出结构看,与农业生产直接相关的生产性支出和基本建设支出占比过高,而农业科研和社会福利等方面的支出过低,而且,由于政府重视程度不够和目标偏差,使得政府公共支出在降低城乡收入差距上的作用不甚明显,从而限制了政府增进社会福利功能的发挥,进而不利于公平增长的实现。在此基础上,本文进一步讨论了如何改变农村公共支出结构以及如何将公共支出政策与农村金融政策相结合等问题。     

The Rise of Global Warming Skepticism: Exploring Affective Image Associations in the United States Over Time

This article explores how affective image associations to global warming have changed over time. Four nationally representative surveys of the American public were conducted between 2002 and 2010 to assess public global warming risk perceptions, policy preferences, and behavior. Affective images (positive or negative feelings and cognitive representations) were collected and content analyzed. The results demonstrate a large increase in “naysayer” associations, indicating extreme skepticism about the issue of climate change. Multiple regression analyses found that holistic affect and “naysayer” associations were more significant predictors of global warming risk perceptions than cultural worldviews or sociodemographic variables, including political party and ideology. The results demonstrate the important role affective imagery plays in judgment and decision‐making processes, how these variables change over time, and how global warming is currently perceived by the American public.     

Investigating a long tail in retail vehicle sales

The concept of the long tail in demand distributions has generated significant research interest because of its potential importance for producers, distributors and retailers. Studies to date have focused on information goods sold through internet channels. Here we study long tail effects in vehicle sales sold through conventional car dealerships. The willingness of customers to compromise on, and/or wait for their requested vehicle specifications are identified as critical factors in vehicle purchases. An extensive empirically based simulation study is conducted to investigate these demand-side factors. The results show how the characteristics of the customer population affect the observed pattern in vehicle sales. The interaction effects of supply-side factors are also highlighted, in particular the effect of the replenishment policy used in the fulfillment system. The study also analyzes the distortion of the underlying demand signal in the sales distribution and the lead time and degree of compromise experienced by different customer populations. Significant managerial implications are highlighted, including the dangers of using the sales distribution as a definitive indicator of demand, the need for the order fulfillment process to align with the characteristics of the market, and the negative effects of focusing replenishment on a small subset of the most popular variants.