Rethinking Trust, Crime Policy and Social Theory,

This article analyses the relationship of ‘trust’ to crime, power and criminal justice policy. The theoretical model employed to analyse this relationship draws from Owen’s (2009a), conceptually driven argument that is based on an ontologically-flexible critique of agency-structure, micro-macro and time-space. This relationship stands at the interface of competing pressures working to produce the increasing complexity of crime and criminal justice policy (Powell 2005). We then move the attention to the conceptual problems of ‘trust’ which is linked with uncertainty and complexity whilst law and order and crime policies rest on the specialist knowledge claimed by a range of professional “experts” and technologists that inhabit powerful spaces through which crime policy and practice is governed and articulated

Business Critical: Understanding a Company’s Current and Desired Stages of Corporate Responsibility Maturity

It’s been a while since the Corporate Responsibility profession took stock of its collective wisdom on where we have been, and where we are going on running businesses responsibly. Meanwhile hardly a week goes by without a helpful suggestion from the outside world on how an organisation should improve its economic value, social usefulness and environmental efficiency; and it is very easy to spot businesses that get their social, environmental and economic decisions out of balance: these organisations hit the headlines seemingly within nanoseconds. On the upside, businesses are increasingly taking an approach that builds an Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) premium into the core economic valuation. This is achieved by those organisations which bring in a diverse set of views to inform risk and reputation management activities, and to build a research and development pipeline for the future. This is managing both the negative and the positive social, environmental and economic impacts

Intangible economy : How can investors deliver change in businesses? Lessons from nonprofit-business partnerships

Investors traditionally prioritised tangible outcomes (money, land, machinery) in order to protect their financial assets. However, the intangible economy (trust, human resources, information, reputation) that co-exists draws attention to new expectations that request the continuous, active and within the public sphere involvement of investors in order to protect their assets by prioritising intangible resources. The paper argues that investors in intangible outcomes who aim to achieve change in corporations share the same limitations within the financial and non-financial field. The case of Nonprofit-Business Partnerships is employed in order to demonstrate how change can be achieved. The role of investors is crucial in facilitating the shift from the tangible to the intangible economy. Investment in the intangible economy is a mechanism of co-determining the priority of responsibilities in the context of corporate social responsibility

Representation through deliberation-The European case

This article shows that the main pattern of European democratization has unfolded along the lines of an EU organized as a multilevel system of representative parliamentary government and not as a system of deliberative governance as the transnationalists propound. But the multilevel EU has developed a structure of representation that is theoretically challenging. In order to come to grips with this we present an institutional variant of deliberative theory, which understands democracy as the combination of a principle of justification and an organizational form. It comes with the following explanatory mechanisms: claimsmaking, justification and learning which in the EU also program institutional copying and emulation mechanisms. We show that the EU has established an incomplete system of representative democracy steeped in a distinct representation-deliberation interface, which has emerged through a particular and distinct configuration of democratization mechanisms

Communicating 'dual citizenship' - how do charities manage their reputation for 'good works' while undertaking commercial activities

Charities and not-for-profit organisations have traditionally eschewed commercial operations in favour of direct fund-raising from supporters. Building on Goodall’s (2000) exploration of sectoral values, it can be said that competitive pressures are driving charities to take on ‘dual citizenship’ through activity in both profit (commercial) and nonprofit (voluntary) sectors. In the United Kingdom, there are some 170,000 charitable organisations in England and Wales which generate £46 billion in annual revenue (UK Charity Commission 2008). There has, however, been little scholarly attention or professional focus on the impact that commercial trading by charities has on relations with key stakeholders, such as supporters, and upon the reputation of the community-focused organisations. This paper reports a case study of a UK charity and explores, using document analysis and phone interviews with supporter-stakeholders, their perceptions of the impact of commercial trading upon the organisation’s reputation as well as their relationship and level of engagement with the organisation. It found that donors are overwhelmingly in support of commercial activities, as long as these are aligned with the charity’s values. The study, however, also found that commercial activities should not deflect the charity from its perceived and announced mission. There were also lessons arising from the study on frequency and style of communication, and the relevance of models of communication, c.f. Grunig’s four descriptors, and measurements of relationships (Hon and Grunig 1999). The paper concludes with proposals for further research

Compulsory loyalty? Accountability, citizenship and the BBC

Este artigo localiza os debates contemporâneos sobre governança e accountability de serviços públicos de televisão e radiodifusão no contexto dos debates no Reino Unido sobre a renovação do Canal BBC. Parte-se da noção sugerida por Warnock (1974) de accountability como o fornecimento de informação e a habilidade de exercer sanções e das distinções propostas por Hirschman (1970) e Thompson (2003) entre saída, voz e lealdade e formas de governança hierárquica, de mercado e de rede. Como accountability pode ser exercida em contextos definidos por Hirschman e Thompson e qual é o papel da confiança (O’Neill, 2002)? Em oposição ao modelo “forte” da concepção normativa de consumidor (Peacock 1986, Potter 1988, Sargant 1992 e 1993) como um usuário capaz de fazer com que instituições se mantenham responsivas em um mercado em bom uncionamento, em serviços de radiodifusão o cidadão é concebido (de acordo com Marshall 1981) meramente como um objeto “fraco” da distribuição de bem-estar ao invés de um agente ativo capaz de manter os difusores responsivos. Em conseqüência, as propostas do governo britânico para um novo modelo de governança da BBC talvez sejam consideradas inadequadas para atender demandas contemporâneas para melhorar a accountability de serviços públicos

Reconciling Hierarchy and Democracy: The Value of Management Learning.

Pluralistic organizations are often argued to have become an indisputable reality for senior managers. In consequence, the role of hierarchy has come under close scrutiny. How can organizations balance the need for congruence, provided through hierarchy, with the need for greater organizational democracy? As yet, the potential for management education and learning to impact on this debate, at either an organizational or a societal level, has been largely unfulfilled. This article argues that the aspirational values of liberal adult educationalists have a significant contribution to make to the management of contemporary organizations. It positions these values alongside the business requisites that shape organizations and examine the motivations of senior managers to apply these ideas in practice. The concept of voluntarism, derived from the field of political philosophy, is proposed as an alternative organizational binding mechanism that alters the rationale for the role of hierarchy. The implications for senior executives and management educationalists are considered

Building the Big Society

Papers are a contribution to the debate and set out the authors ’ views only Localism and the Big Societ