The Role of Boards in Reviewing Information Technology Governance (ITG) as Part of Organizational Control Environment Assessments

IT Governance (ITG) is an important topic as US companies must now monitor ITG under the provisions of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (2002) (Hoffmann, 2003). Trites (2003) indicates that directors are responsible for strategic planning, internal control structures and business risk. The control environment is defined in Australian Auditing Standard AUS 402 to mean "the overall attitude, awareness and actions of management regarding internal control and its importance to the entity". This paper contributes to the knowledge of ITG by forming an integrated ITG Literature (IIL) which links prior research to four key dimensions of ITG. The paper presents a review of literature on ITG performance measurement systems which assess the ability of organizations to achieve these four ITG dimensions. A revised ITG Dimensions Model offered for consideration. The final contribution of the paper is to propose critical issues Boards should consider as part of their assessment of organizational control environments

Revisiting the OLI Paradigm: The Institutions, the State, and China's OFDI

We propose a modified theoretical framework based on John Dunning’s classical OLI paradigm in the international business literature to analyze Chinese firms’ fast-growing and aggressive outward foreign direct investment (OFDI). In particular, from an institutional perspective, we suggest a “state-stewardship” view to incorporate state institutions into the OLI paradigm. This paper supplements our earlier work (Ren, Liang, and Zheng, 2011) on identifying the formal institutional determinants of Chinese firms’ OFDI motivations and strategies, by further looking at the impact of direct and indirect policies, and the OFDI state-controlled financial intermediaries. Under our modified OLI framework we also examine the potential concerns on China’s state-backed OFDI and its implication on long-term sustainability.outward foreign direct investment, institutions, state-stewardship view, OLI paradigm

Leveraging State Economic Development Resources to Create Job Opportunities for People with Disabilities

A 2009 research brief produced for the NTAR Leadership Center, a consortium led by the John H. Heldrich Center for Workforce Development at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey. Founded in 2007 under a grant/contract with the Office of Disability Employment Policy at the U.S. Department of Labor, the NTAR Leadership Center's mission is to build capacity and leadership at the federal, state, and local levels to enable change across workforce development and disability-specific systems that will increase employment and economic self-sufficiency for adults with disabilities. This brief examines existing state, regional, and local economic development resource tools and discusses ways in which states and localities can leverage traditional loan and financing programs that enhance job creation, provide access to local employment opportunities, or help support employment for residents, including those with disabilities

Political Economy of International Climate Finance: Navigating Decisions in PPCR and SREP

This working paper explores how countries can build their own 'climate finance readiness' by understanding their internal political economy and use that understanding to steer consensus-based decisions on climate finance investments. For climate finance to be effective, national leaders must build shared commitments. This involves considering the arguments, incentives and power dynamics at play to ensure priorities are more equitable and representative of a broader group of stakeholders. Doing so will also help to reduce the risk of implementation delays. This paper uses case studies from Bangladesh, Ethiopia and Nepal to explore how narratives and incentives within the political economy drive climate investment outcomes under the Pilot Programme for Climate Resilience (PPCR) and the Scaling up Renewable Energy Programme (SREP). It draws from broader analysis of the discourses around these investments, including 80 interviews with government; multilateral development banks (MDBs) and other stakeholders

East Midlands Transport Equipment Sector Strategy

Transport equipment has been identified as a key sector in the East Midlands economy. This strategy sets out a vision for the development of the sector and how it can contribute to the attainment of regional economic development objectives

Striking a Balance: Centralised and Decentralised Decisions in Government

This paper identifies factors to be looked at when considering the extent to which decisions within government should be centralised or decentralised. In practice, the solution is almost always likely to involve a balance between centralised and decentralised decision-making. Nevertheless there are a number of common factors that are generally applicable to questions of centralisation and decentralisation. This paper identifies those factors in order to provide some guidance for decisions regarding the location of decision rights. Rather than being prescriptive, the paper simply presents the relevant issues for consideration. Centralisation (or decentralisation) is a complex and multi-dimensional issue. It is partly for this reason that the paper does not suggest any specific solutions. The solution in any particular case will involve tradeoffs between the factors identified in the paper as well as value judgements regarding the ranking of the various factors. In determining the appropriate balance between centralised and decentralised decisions, various factors are in tension. Centralisation can help ensure uniform and consistent standards, minimise inequalities, avoid the duplication of services, allow for the achievement of economies of scale, and increase coherence and coordination. Decentralisation, on the other hand, can help enhance local autonomy and empowerment, encourage customisation and innovation, and increase participation. Economic, social, managerial and constitutional perspectives offer a number of theoretical frameworks that are useful in considering issues of centralisation/ decentralisation. This paper draws together ideas from across these perspectives. It concludes that the solution is likely to be characterised by a “tight/loose” pattern whereby there is “tight” or centralised control over the major objectives that is then joined by “loose” or decentralised discretion over the ways in which those objectives are achieved to varying degrees.Centralisation; decentralisation; decision rights

The motivations, organisation and outcomes of university-industry interaction in the Netherlands

This paper aims at analysing the impact of institutional and organizational factors on bridging industrial and university motivations for collaboration, as well as on the content, management and outcome of this relationship, in the Netherlands. In particular, we explore which type of projects, set up under specific industrial and university motivations, are more likely to face institutional barriers related to technology, market and organisational incentives frameworks. Moreover, we analyse the impact of technology transfer offices, research sponsoring, part-time professorships, and patenting on aligning university and industry motivations towards collaboration. To proceed empirically, thirty in-depth cases of successful university-industry knowledge transfer are analysed.university-industry interaction, innovation cooperation

Improving Access to Apprenticeship: Strengthening State Policies and Practices

Describes state efforts to expand the apprenticeship model through outreach, recruitment, and subsidies to strengthen labor market-based education and skills development strategies. Discusses obstacles, lessons learned from states, and recommendations

Governance of Environment-Enhancing Technical change - past experiences and suggestions for improvement

There is much talk about environmental policies being faulty. Past policies are being criticisedfor failing to achieve environmental goals (the environmentalist complaint), for being overlyexpensive (the industrialist complaint) and for failing to encourage innovation and dynamicefficiency (the complaint of economists dealing with innovation). This paper looks at theinnovation and technology adoption effects of past environmental policies. It finds indeed fewexamples of environmental policies that stimulated innovation. The common technologyresponse is the use of expensive end-of-pipe solutions and incremental process changesoffering limited environmental gains. This begs the question: why did the policies fail topromote more radical innovation and dynamic efficiency? One explanation—well-recognisedin the economic literature—is the capture of government policies by special interests. Thispaper offers a second explanation—based on innovation and technology adoption studies—which says that in order to have a decisive and socially beneficial influence policy instrumentsmust be fine-tuned to the circumstances in which sociotechnical change processes occur and tipthe balance. Within this alternative view, the starting point of government interventions is thecapabilities, interests, interdependencies and games of social actors around an environmentalproblem instead of the set of environmental policy instruments for achieving an environmentalgoal. The paper sees a need for government authorities to be explicitly concerned with technicalchange (rather than implicitly through a change in the economic frame conditions) and to beconcerned with institutional arrangements beyond the choice of policy instruments, and act as achange agent. This requires different roles for policy makers: that of a sponsor, planner,regulator, matchmaker, alignment actor and ‘creative game regulator’. The paper offers twoperspectives on environmental policy: an instrument one and a modulation one. The latter isespecially important for promoting innovation and bringing about radical change, somethingwhich is very difficult with traditional regulatory instruments. Instruments for promotingenvironment-enhancing technical change are appraised and suggestions are offered for thepurposes for which different policy instruments may be used in differing economic contexts.environmental economics ;