Political Influence and Bureaucratic Autonomy

The establishment of autonomous public bodies during the past two decades has created a highly fragmented public sector. Using a dataset with more than 200 Dutch public sector organisations, this article examines three related sets of questions: to what extent a relationship exists between formal and de facto autonomy; the level of influence that interested parties exert upon those organizations; whether a relationship exists between levels of formal and de facto autonomy and the level of influence exercised by these parties. We find that formal autonomy does not reinforce de facto autonomy; organizations with less autonomy report higher levels of political influence when policy autonomy is concerned; and that organizations with more autonomy report higher societal influence on their financial autonomy.

Reorganization of Firms and Job Stability: A Theoretical Approach

Abstract. This paper seeks to provide a theoretical explanation to the contradictory results found by the empirical literature concerning the effects of recent workplace organizational changes on job stability. We develop an endogenous job destruction model à la Mortensen‐Pissarides (1994) where a modernizing firm may offer to the worker a tayloristic job (traditional organization) or a holistic job (modern organization). We then study the evolution of job stability during the transition from a tayloristic to a holistic organization. Our results point towards the importance of the restructuring costs supported by firms during the modernizing trajectory as the main factor responsible for the variations in job stability.     

Approach,Ability, Aftermath: A Psychological Process Framework of Unethical Behavior at Work

Abstract

Many of the scandalous organizational practices to have come to light in the last decade—rigging LIBOR, misselling payment protection insurance, rampant Wall Street insider trading, large-scale bribery of foreign officials, and the packaging and sale of toxic securities to naïve investors—require ethically problematic judgments and behaviors. However, dominant models of workplace unethical behavior fail to account for what we have learned from moral psychology and cognitive neuroscience in the past two decades about how and why people make the moral decisions they do. In this review, we explain how intuition, affect, physiology, and identity support and inform more deliberative reasoning process in the construction and enactment of moral behavior. We then describe how these processes play into how individuals approach a potential moral choice, whether they have the ability in the moment to enact it, and how it is encoded in the action' aftermath, feeding back into future approaches. Throughout, we attend to the role of organizational context in influencing these processes. By reviewing this large body of research and presenting a new framework that attempts to integrate these new findings, our hope is to motivate new research about how to support more moral workplace behavior that starts from what we know now.     

Predicting Emergency Evacuation and Sheltering Behavior: A Structured Analytical Approach

We offer a general approach to predicting public compliance with emergency recommendations. It begins with a formal risk assessment of an anticipated emergency, whose parameters include factors potentially affecting and affected by behavior, as identified by social science research. Standard procedures are used to elicit scientific experts' judgments regarding these behaviors and dependencies, in the context of an emergency scenario. Their judgments are used to refine the model and scenario, enabling local emergency coordinators to predict the behavior of citizens in their area. The approach is illustrated with a case study involving a radiological dispersion device (RDD) exploded in downtown Pittsburgh, PA. Both groups of experts (national and local) predicted approximately 80-90% compliance with an order to evacuate workplaces and 60-70% compliance with an order to shelter in place at home. They predicted 10% lower compliance for people asked to shelter at the office or to evacuate their homes. They predicted 10% lower compliance should the media be skeptical, rather than supportive. They also identified preparatory policies that could improve public compliance by 20-30%. We consider the implications of these results for improving emergency risk assessment models and for anticipating and improving preparedness for disasters, using Hurricane Katrina as a further case in point.     

中国企业政治策略与行为研究

企业为谋求有利于自己的外部环境而影响政府政策与法规制定和实施过程的策略被称为企业政治策略 ,实施上述策略的行为称为企业政治行为。本文通过对企业高层经理的小组访谈和个别深度访谈 ,对我国企业政治策略与行为、政治资源和政治绩效进行了描述和分类 ,并对企业政治行为过程及政治行为的规范性进行了解释。进一步的比较分析发现 ,中外企业政治行为有很强的相似性 ,但也存在由于中外政治经济体制不同而产生的差别。文章最后提出了进一步研究的建议。     

Corporate Social Responsibility Reporting as Substantive and Symbolic Behavior: A Multilevel Theoretical Analysis

This article describes a multilevel theoretical framework that examines the multiple causes of corporate social responsibility (CSR) reporting in the social environment of business. We argue that substantive and/or symbolic reporting flows from individual‐, aggregate‐, organizational‐, and institution‐level phenomena, and is thus a complex outcome of CSR and corporate social performance (CSP). Theoretical lenses range from reinforcement theory at the microlevel to legitimacy and stakeholder theories at the macrolevel, and include a discussion of the emergence of lower‐level CSR‐relevant characteristics to higher level constructs. Our goal is to clarify how this behavior develops from microlevel, mesolevel, and macrolevel processes with a view toward assisting corporations to better enact CSR reporting, and their stakeholders to effectively promote substantive reporting behavior.     

慈善捐赠、政治关联与债务融资——民营企业与政府的资源交换行为

民营企业的慈善捐赠是为寻求金融资源而与政府互惠的一种战略行为.本文以2007-2010年1489家民营上市公司为样本,验证了民营企业慈善捐赠对债务融资的影响,并进一步考察了政治关联和政府的作用.研究发现,民营企业慈善捐赠有助于债务融资.这种效应主要发生在政治关联民营企业中,而且信贷分配市场化程度越高,慈善捐赠对债务融资的影响越小,政治关联对两者关系的影响也越小.进一步研究发现,慈善捐赠对债务融资的影响主要体现在长期借款上,管制行业政治关联民营企业的慈善捐赠更有助于债务融资.政府通过对信贷分配的干预与民营企业进行资源交换,是政治关联民营企业慈善捐赠影响债务融资的关键.本文的研究立足于经济社会转型期中国的现实情境,从债务融资角度,证实了民营企业通过慈善捐赠“购买”金融资源的行为逻辑,这对于理解我国民营企业慈善捐赠动机和影响有重要的参考价值.     

基于心流体验视角的在线消费者购买行为影响因素研究

在线消费者处于虚拟的网络环境中,具有其独特的需求和行为特征,而"心流体验"理论在解释影响在线消费者行为的情感和认知因素方面有重要意义.本文将从"心流体验"视角探索影响在线消费者购物行为的因素.本文研究表明,网站设计维度、表现维度、消费者自身维度和网站内容维度都会显著影响在线消费者心流体验,从而导致消费者增加无计划的购买数量以及增强重复购买的意愿.     

Bureaucratic Politics and Administrative Reform: Why Politics Matters

Administrative reform is a political, not managerial, issue. This study argues that administrative reform is highly influenced by realities of bureaucratic politics. Reforms usually mean the struggle over power between involved actors. There are evidences of patterns of power struggle among and between politicians and bureaucrats. Including contestation among bureaucrats that are responsible for public management reform. These power struggles and contestations explain the decision-making processes for designing and implementing administrative reform policies and shifts of power relations. This article proposes a new framework to advance the concept of bureaucratic politics, with reference to administrative reform policy. It highlights the missing link between public policy and public management reform literature by revisiting the power of politicians and bureaucrats in making reform policies.     

Bureaucratic Power: Security and the National Response Plan

The National Response Plan was created by the Department of Homeland Security for the purpose of organizing disaster relief services by coordinating activities of cabinet departments and independent agencies. A case study of the Plan's creation shows that the Department has skillfully used its sources of administrative power to build a latent control network with little or no oversight, raising questions of accountability and ultimate security. Variables discussed here promote building of a theory of bureaucratic power.

风险度理论及其实证研究

在对已有风险管理方法分析与回顾的基础上,基于金融市场显著的非线性特征,本文提出了风险度向量方法这一完整的理论分析框架以对非线性风险进行有效监控。实证研究表明该方法能够科学地反映金融市场的波动性风险状况与非线性本质。     

Accountability and Creating Accountability: a Framework for Exploring Behavioural Perspectives of Corporate Governance

What is board accountability, and how is such accountability created? This response to Roberts, McNulty and Stiles suggests a framework for exploring behavioural perspectives of boards and corporate governance. The contribution of this framework is to develop a terminology that may help us accumulate knowledge and provide directions for a research agenda. The consistent use of a terminology, the accumulation of knowledge and an accepted research agenda among a core group of scholar are some of the first steps in developing a promising research field with considerable potential to create actionable knowledge. The framework can help us sort some of the research, concepts and anecdotes that have been presented in efforts to open the black box of board research.     

In-Store Experimental Approach to Pricing and Consumer Behavior

This study assessed how, and to what extent, it is possible to use behavioral experimentation and relative sales analysis to study the effects of price on consumers' brand choices in the store environment. An in-store experiment was performed in four stores to investigate the effects of different prices of a target brand on consumers' relative buying behavior using an alternating treatment design with baseline. The intervention consisted of periodically reducing the target brand's price by 17–26%. Price reductions generally had none or minor effects. However, data for one store showed lower relative sales for the price reduction condition. These are surprising results and they underline the need to examine all of the marketing mix factors, not only price.     

Supply Network Structure,Visibility, and Risk Diffusion: A Computational Approach

Understanding and managing supply chain risks is a critical functional competency for today's global enterprises. A lack of this competency can have significant negative outcomes, including costly production and delivery delays, loss of future sales, and a tarnished corporate image. The ability to identify and mitigate risks, however, is complicated as supply chains are becoming increasingly global, complex, and interconnected. Drawing on the complex systems and epidemiology literature, and using a computational modeling and network analysis approach, we examine the impact of global supply network structure on risk diffusion and supply network health and demonstrate the importance of supply network visibility. Our results show a significant association between network structure and both risk diffusion and supply network health. In particular, our results indicate that small‐world supply network topologies consistently outperform supply networks with scale‐free characteristics. Theoretically, our study contributes to our understanding of risk management and supply networks as complex networked systems using a computational approach. Managerially, our study illustrates how decision makers can benefit from a network analytic approach to develop a more holistic understanding of system‐wide risk diffusion and to guide network governance policies for more favorable health level outcomes. The article concludes by highlighting the main findings and discussing possibilities of future research directions.     

Residential Building Codes,Affordability, and Health Protection: A Risk-Tradeoff Approach

Residential building codes intended to promote health and safety may produce unintended countervailing risks by adding to the cost of construction. Higher construction costs increase the price of new homes and may increase health and safety risks through income and stock effects. The income effect arises because households that purchase a new home have less income remaining for spending on other goods that contribute to health and safety. The stock effect arises because suppression of new-home construction leads to slower replacement of less safe housing units. These countervailing risks are not presently considered in code debates. We demonstrate the feasibility of estimating the approximate magnitude of countervailing risks by combining the income effect with three relatively well understood and significant home-health risks. We estimate that a code change that increases the nationwide cost of constructing and maintaining homes by $150 (0.1% of the average cost to build a single-family home) would induce offsetting risks yielding between 2 and 60 premature fatalities or, including morbidity effects, between 20 and 800 lost quality-adjusted life years (both discounted at 3%) each year the code provision remains in effect. To provide a net health benefit, the code change would need to reduce risk by at least this amount. Future research should refine these estimates, incorporate quantitative uncertainty analysis, and apply a full risk-tradeoff approach to real-world case studies of proposed code changes.     

Bureaucracy and Democracy: A Theoretical Analysis

This article addresses the relationship between bureaucracy and democracy, bureaucratic politics and democratic politics. Bureaucratic theories and politics are discussed, democratic theories and politics are analyzed, and the argument in favor of reconciling bureaucracy and democracy is analyzed with implications for democratic theory and public administration. Persistence of bureaucracy is stressed, deficiencies in democratic theory and practice are noted, and the importance of a functionally balanced and professionally competent bureaucracy is reminded for administration of sound governance in both developed and developing societies. It is hypocrisy to speak of functioning democracy without a balanced professional bureaucracy.     

Vocabularies and Vocabulary Structure: A New Approach Linking Categories,Practices, and Institutions

Organizational scholars have long used vocabularies, and with the rise of research on language, this work has grown. Yet the research drawing on vocabularies is wide ranging and not integrated. We review work on vocabularies from literatures on rhetoric, culture, cognition, and coordination. We integrate and extend this work on vocabularies, introducing the new concept of vocabulary structure to capture different aspects of vocabulary use that collectively explain how vocabularies yield meaningful categories. We also generate a cross-level model to link work on vocabularies at the level of social collectives with work on vocabulary use in situations. We illustrate the usefulness of vocabularies by showing how they help advance work on institutional logics. Vocabularies offer substantial opportunities for theoretical integration and novel extensions for organizational research and practice.