Legitimacy, Interest Group Pressures and Change in Emergent Institutions: The Case of Foreign Investors and Host Country Governments

We offer a simple model of policymaking emphasizing socialization and limits on human cognition to explicate mechanisms of change in emergent (as opposed to established) institutions. Emergent institutions are more susceptible to change, and their opponents may use frames or existing reference points to illustrate inconsistency with prevailing notions of legitimacy. Broader institutional structures and specific organizational characteristics moderate pressure for change. This perspective has novel implications for strategy and policy design.

Attitudinal and behavioural determinants influencing decision makers when adopting integration technologies in local government

Over the last few years, the advent of innovative or revolutionary integration technologies has influenced pivotal decisions within top management to strategically transform Local Government Authorities (LGAs). These technologies may represent a huge cost for adopting LGAs, but may also offer the chance to achieve competitive advantage through superior service delivery. With the emergence of electronic Government (e- Government), LGAs are turning to integration technologies to fully automate and e-enable their business processes and integrate their IT infrastructures. While prior research on the adoption of integration technologies in the private and public domain has considered several determinants (e.g. benefits, barriers, costs), little attention has been given to investigate the attitudinal and behavioural determinants influencing top management’s decision making process for the adoption of integration technologies in LGAs. Notwithstanding, the implications of this research have yet to be assessed, leaving scope for timeliness and novel research. Therefore, it is of high importance to investigate this area within LGAs and contribute to the area of strategic decision making by examining attitudinal and behavioural determinants of top management in relation to integration technologies adoption

An Assessment Tool for E-Government System Performance:-A Citizen-Centric Model

Governments worldwide have, increasingly, implemented e-government initiatives for their potential significant benefits; among which, delivering better services to citizens through increasing citizens‟ convenience, satisfaction, and independence; and saving their time, effort, and cost. Achieving each benefit is an objective to these governments and fulfilling each objective is considered a critical success factors. Hence, governments need to assess the extent to which they were able to obtain their preset goals. This study merely focuses on the citizens‟ perspective of the evaluation. However, the literature seems to lack studies that propose such a sufficient evaluation tool that has been reliably validated. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to fill this gap by proposing and validating a conceptual model and an associated evaluation tool which measures the e-government performance from citizens‟ perspective. The model includes factors which impact citizens‟ perceptions and their psychological and tangible benefits which, in turn, influence their adoption. The model was validated by a survey method and analyzed using PLS. The results support our model and shows that almost all paths in the proposed model are significant

International Comparisons and Transfer of Labour Market Institutions

International comparisons of labour market institutions and their transfer across boundaries have gained in importance. The paper deals with the question of the best way to proceed in making such comparisons. At the same time the question of the possibilities and limits to institutional transfer is addressed. On the one hand competition between systems obliges governments to adopt institutions of other countries. On the other hand inflexibilities resulting from path dependency and/or powerful domestic interest groups can impede the transfer of institutions.

Trinity Restoration Inc.: Southside Cultural Center Economic Impact Study

Economic development has shifted from location-oriented business models towards a more all-encompassing model that recognizes the advancement of human capital or intellectual property as continuously increasing in value. This microcosmic characteristic of development extends to aid in the growth of society as a whole. The Arts and Culture attract a demographic of inspired and motivated people to the area. It results in the development of the society surrounding art venues. The general population will always seek out entertainment, by installing a venue of artistic expression in South Providence that will motivate the community and propel development. This phenomena has been proven, as denoted through the historical evaluation of artistic venues across America that have generated economic growth in their respective communities

Popular Power and Environmental Governance: The Cuban approach to natural hazards and disaster risk reduction

This thesis explores factors that have endowed Cuba with an outstanding approach to natural hazards and disaster risk reduction (DRR). In addition, the research analyses the connection of these factors with the practice of environmental governance within the Cuban development model. Cuba’s development model is embedded in its socialist project, which has been historically contested by hegemonic paradigms. Therefore, Cuba’s socialist model is examined in relation to the concept of legitimacy. For this purpose, the concept of participatory or direct democracy is also analysed. This alternative democracy model emphasises representativeness and people’s participation in decision-making (popular power). Legitimacy is here considered essential by a perspective that goes beyond strictly political. Its importance is rather based on a general goal of this research: to discuss factors that can be applied worldwide to improve disaster risk reduction strategies. Natural hazards represent a worldwide threat and their effects are particularly devastating in poor countries (C. Field, 2012; Gencer, 2013; Mas Bermejo, 2006). These effects are not only evidenced in the short term by fatalities and material losses; they can also affect countries in the long term by hindering businesses and enterprises that may contribute to economic development (UNISDR, 2013). Finding solutions to cope with this problem is a matter of concern for countries in general, and particularly important to countries that show the worst results in these aspects. Cuba’s example of Community-Based Disaster Management (CBDM, see Thompson & Gaviria, 2004) is noteworthy not only for providing solutions that can be worldly applied. Cuba’s example demonstrates that successful approaches to natural hazards are not necessarily based on the income level of countries, nor to the degree of investment in disaster risk management. Cuba’s remarkable results in disaster management could be better explained by the socio-political context in which its disaster risk reduction (DRR) strategy is immersed. The research carried out for this thesis used a mixed-method approach (qualitative and quantitative) and was carried out in areas in Cuba that have been affected by natural hazards, according to available historical data of human and economic losses. The findings obtained in the selected areas were analysed within the socio-political context of the country. The consistency of these findings with national policies and popular practices provides the basis of a discussion of particular aspects of environmental governance and legitimacy of alternative models of democracy.M-IE

Governance Redux: The Empirircal Challenge

This paper is based on the governance chapter contribution to the 2003/04 Global Competitiveness Report (GCR). Building from the 2002/03 contribution to the GCR, it argues that governance continues to be at a crossroad, its underperformance being evident worldwide in most regions and across many countries. This ('governance policy gap') contrasts with the strides that have been made in many countries in improving macro- economic policies for well over a decade. Based on a worldwide survey of enterprises carried out for the GCR, we find that firms from emerging economies single out corruption and excessive bureaucracy among the top constraints to their business operations, while excessive bureaucracy and the tax regime are identified as top constraints by the respondent firms from the OECD. Many countries currently have levels of governance that are insufficient to support their income levels and/or growth path, namely they experience a 'governance deficit', which can be quantified. We also carry out a simple empirical exploration challenging the validity of legal-historical origins in determining governance performance in emerging economies nowadays, and provide a brief synthesis of the empirical importance of inequality of influence (by vested interests), as well as of governance at the city level.Governance Competitiveness, Corruption, Business Survey, Influence

Governance Redux: The Empirical Challenge

Building from the 2002/03 contribution to the Global Competitiveness Report ("Governance Crossroads"), this paper argues that governance continues to be at a crossroad, its underperformance being evident in most regions and across many countries. This ('governance policy gap') contrasts with the strides that have been made in many countries in improving the content of macro-economic policies for well over a decade. Firms from emerging economies single out corruption and excessive bureaucracy among the top constraints to their business operations, while excessive bureaucracy and the tax regime are identified as top constraints by the respondent firms from the OECD. Neither inflation nor the exchange rate regime are rated as important constraints. Many countries currently have levels of governance that are insufficient to support their income levels and/or growth path, namely they experience a 'governance deficit', which we suggest it can be quantified. We also review work analyzing the deeper determinants of governance, and find that in lower income countries the origins of a country's legal system may not matter significantly. Further, we empirically evaluate political dimensions of governance, such as the extent of 'capture' and undue influence by some politically connected powerful firms in shaping the regulations, laws and policies in a country. Unequal influence is closely associated with poor public and financial governance performance. Finally, this firm-level dataset permits the construction of a governance database at the city level, and initial results of an empirical exploration of determinants of city-level governance are presented. A key implication of this chapter refers to the focus on policies aimed at the nexus between corporate strategies and public governance—-emphasizing prevention, external accountability and transparency mechanisms—and challenges the value of traditional measures within the public sector (such as passing laws by fiat or creating new Anti-Corruption Commissions).

The effect of recovery satisfaction on citizens loyalty perception: a case study of mobile government services

Use of mobile services is an integral part of today’s life. Organizations, government agencies as well as service providers in the market employ mobile services or application in reaching their citizens or users worldwide. Notably, service failure issues might frustrate users in using mobile service, but usually, service providers would employ the strategy of recovery as solution. Recovery strategy aims to sustain the relationship with users following service failure. Somehow, the factors that might impact recovery process are unclear. It is also unclear if users will use the service again following the completion of recovery process. Hence, in this study, a survey on 743 adults was carried out, and the data were analyzed using SEM to determine the factors that impact users’ recovery satisfaction the most and the impact of recovery satisfaction on citizens loyalty to use mobile government in the future. The finding of this study illustrated that expect of self-efficacy, all factors proposed in the research model found to has a significant impact on recovery satisfaction. Among all the supported hypothesis, the highest impact on recovery satisfaction comes from perceived trust in government as the initial predictor to use the servic

Governance in health care delivery : raising performance

The impacts of health care investments in developing and transition countries are typically measured by inputs and general health outcomes. Missing from the health agenda are measures of performance that reflect whether health systems are meeting their objectives; public resources are being used appropriately; and the priorities of governments are being implemented. This paper suggests that good governance is central to raising performance in health care delivery. Crucial to high performance are standards, information, incentives and accountability. This paper provides a definition of good governance in health and a framework for thinking about governance issues as a way of improving performance in the health sector. Performance indicators that offer the potential for tracking relative health performance are proposed, and provide the context for the discussion of good governance in health service delivery in the areas of budget and resource management, individual provider performance, health facility performance, informal payments, and corruption perceptions. What we do and do not know about effective solutions to advance good governance and performance in health is presented for each area, drawing on existing research and documented experiences.Health Monitoring&Evaluation,Health Systems Development&Reform,Public Sector Expenditure Policy,Health Economics&Finance,Health Law