Institutions for Climate Change : A Method to assess the Inherent Characteristics of Institutions to enable the Adaptive Capacity of Society

This paper addresses the question: How can the inherent characteristics of institutions to stimulate the adaptive capacity of society to climate change from local through to national level be assessed? On the basis of a literature review and several brainstorm sessions, this paper presents six criteria: Variety, learning capacity, space for planned and innovative autonomous action, leadership, availability of resources and fair governance

Public ethnocentrism : a cognitive orientation and preventive measures

Pojęcie zrównoważonego rozwoju wymaga zmniejszenia skali różnych przeszkód gospodarczych i organizacyjnych, które destabilizują gospodarki krajowe. Wstępne badanie wykazało, że istnieje szczególna motywacja wpływająca na zachowania decyzyjne w trakcie publicznych zakupów towarów i usług, a mianowicie etnocentryzm publiczny. Pomimo dotychczas prowadzonych badań zjawisko to nadal nie jest w pełni zbadane, szczególnie w zakresie zapobiegania etnocentrycznym zachowaniom, które mogą prowadzić do niesprawiedliwości epistemicznej. Badanie to miało na celu zainicjowanie wysiłków w celu wypełnienia luki badawczej poprzez stworzenie ogólnie przyjętego podejścia do oceny etnocentrycznych postaw w sektorze publicznym. W oparciu o przegląd literatury, który obejmuje dobrze znaną zrównoważoną kartę wyników Nortona-Kaplana, formułujemy oryginalny czteroelementowy model zapobiegania etnocentryzmowi publicznemu w sektorze publicznym, uzupełniony o dziewięć zmiennych skuteczności w zapobieganiu etnocentryzmowi publicznemu. Oferujemy nowe, dodatkowe narzędzie do pomiaru wolności gospodarczej. Badania te służą osiąganiu zrównoważonego rozwoju.The concept of sustainability requires a reduction in the scale of different economic and organisational obstacles, which destabilise domestic economies. The preliminary study showed that there is a specific motivation influencing public decision-making behaviour in the course of public purchases of goods and services, namely public ethnocentrism. Despite several studies, this phenomenon remains mostly unexplored, especially in the field of preventing ethnocentric behaviours that may lead to epistemic injustice. This study was aimed at initiating an effort to fill the research gap by creating a generally accepted approach to evaluating ethnocentric attitudes in the public sector. Based on the literature review, which includes the well-known Norton-Kaplan Balanced Scorecard, we formulate the original four-element model of preventing public ethnocentrism in the public sector supplemented by nine variables of effectiveness in preventing public ethnocentrism. We offer a new, additional worldwide tool for measuring economic freedom. This research provides the basis for elimination of public constraints in achieving sustainability

Evaluating intellectual assets in university libraries: A multi-site case study from Thailand

Intellectual assets are strategic resources that libraries can use to add value to services, but their intangible attributes make them hard to evaluate. An exploratory case study used document analysis, interviews and a questionnaire to develop and test indicators of intellectual assets and related performance measures at three university libraries in Thailand. The study demonstrated the feasibility of applying an intellectual capital perspective and a scorecard process model to design a workable system for evaluating library intangibles, particularly where libraries have a pre-existing interest in knowledge management and a culture of assessment. © World Scientific Publishing Co

From managing risk to increasing resilience: a review on the development of urban flood resilience, its assessment and the implications for decision making

Driven by urban growth in hazard prone areas such as along coasts or rivers as well as by climate change induced sea-level rise and increase in extreme rainfall, flood risk in urban areas is increasing. Better understanding of risks, risk drivers and its consequences in urban areas have revealed shortcomings in the existing flood risk management approaches. This has led to a paradigm shift in dealing with floods from managing the risk to reduce damages, to making urban communities resilient to flooding. Often described as a complex and at times confusing concept, this systematic review identifies and summarises the different dimensions and approaches of urban flood resilience and how they are applied in practice. Our analysis shows that urban flood resilience as a concept has evolved over the last two decades. From an engineering concept with a strong focus on ensuring that the built environment can withstand a flood to a more recent definition as a transformative process with the aim to enable all parts of the urban system to live with floods and learn from previous shocks. This evolved understanding is also reflected in the increasing number of dimensions considered in urban flood resilience assessments and decision support tools. A thematic analysis of the challenges in conceptualising and applying urban flood resilience reported in the literature has revealed a number of issues including around fairness and equity of the applied approaches, a lack of data and widely accepted methods as well as uncertainty around changing risks as a result of climate change. Based on these findings we propose a new research agenda, focusing on meta studies to identify the key dimensions and criteria for urban flood resilience, supporting a transparent and evidence-led operationalisation

Mobilising management control systems to manage stakeholder relationship and sustainability challenges: an empirical case study of a major construction product company

An emerging stream of management accounting research has investigated how management accounting techniques can be used to manage sustainability. Because of the transformative nature of sustainability, the subject area embraces a significant breadth of issues across different research disciplines. While literature suggests there is a lack of definitive texts for thinking about sustainability in management accounting studies, scholars see potential to help organisations identify social and environmental risks and opportunities by using extant accounting mechanisms and engaging with business. The research identifies literature that borrows insights from Professor Freeman s Stakeholder Theory (1984) and recognises its potential to enrich the current understanding of accounting for sustainability. Therefore, the aim of this research is to augment Simons Levers of Control (LOC) framework to incorporate greater depth on the role of interactions between managers and stakeholders in the implementation of (sustainability) management control systems. The research undertakes a qualitative approach that uses empirical case study data from a major construction product company. Using interview data from 29 semi- structured interviews (where 7 interviews were conducted with external stakeholders) and documentary evidence (such as sustainability reports and policy) to provide a useful track of what has happened within the case organisation. LOC is employed as the theoretical lens to investigate how managers use management control systems (MCS) for sustainability-related, strategic decision-making. The research provides empirical findings that indicate Stakeholder Theory can augment Simons LOC framework, as an analytic framework that used by the managers. The research responds to calls to investigate the potential of using extant accounting mechanisms to cope with sustainability challenges through exploring the relationships between: (a) sustainability, (b) MCS, and (c) strategic decision-making. The empirical material is an example used to illustrate the theoretical framework in one case study organisation. Firstly, the research identifies organisational use of MCS to address stakeholders sustainability requirement for stakeholder management. This study explores a range of MCS used by the case organisation to consider and weigh stakeholders concerns and expectations in the process of stakeholder management. Aligning with Simons LOC literature, strong evidence is found to suggest MCS can be used in a dynamic and multi-layered way in managing stakeholders sustainability requirements. Secondly, the influences of the external use of MCS on the case organisation s sustainability strategy have been revealed. Empirical evidence provides comprehensive understanding of three key stakeholders levels of influence (i) top- down, (ii) mediated and (iii) collaborative relationship, to case organisation s sustainability strategy. Each is provided with specific strategic motivation(s) and is achieved through the mobilisation of MCS between the case organisation and stakeholders. Lastly, the research comprehends the use of MCS by the managers to manage sustainability-related strategic decision-making. Findings show that MCS are used in a variety of ways to manage strategy formation and strategy implementation. Both positive and negative controls are important for an intended sustainability strategy to be successful. The academic literature suggests that interactive control systems can be deployed to manage strategy formation, as originated by Simons (1995). This research suggests that such systems are also used by external stakeholders, namely for strategic decision-making; and this allows managers to cope with both the fluidity of a sustainability strategy, as well as responding to external changes

THE EFFECTS OF BALANCED SCORECARD IMPLEMENTATION ON ORGANIZATIONAL PERFORMANCE: THE CASE OF THE HEALTHCARE SECTOR IN THE UAE

The aim of this study is to identify the critical success factors (CSFs) that positively affect balanced scorecard (BSC) implementation in the healthcare sector in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and to examine the impact of BSC implementation on organizational performance. The BSC theory has been applied in various industries, including manufacturing, the public sector, banking and insurance, hospitality, and healthcare. However, little knowledge has been revealed about its design and implementation in healthcare organizations. In addition, no published articles exist on BSC implementation in the context of the healthcare industry in the UAE, which shows a clear gap when it comes to using of the integrative theories framework of the BSC in healthcare. The healthcare sector is very important for leaders and key decision-makers in the UAE, so it seems pertinent to identify the CSFs for BSC implementation in this sector. A conceptual framework is proposed to explain the impact of 13 CSFs on BSC implementation to strive for high-performance organizational practice. The proposed conceptual model is tested using a quantitative approach through a survey questionnaire distributed to 73 private hospitals in the UAE. The hospitals’ top management involved in BSC implementation were approached to complete the study and the final sample size comprises 140 people. This gives a response rate of 81.5%, which is very high due to the researcher’s strong connections in the healthcare industry. A partial least squares method is used to fit the conceptual model and test the research’s goodness of fit by assessing the validity and reliability of the scales used. Bootstrap tests are applied to determine the significance of the relationships between the latent variables that represent CSFs, successful implementation of the BSC and organizational performance. The results show strong statistical evidence that CSFs influence the effectiveness of BSC implementation, which also significantly impacts organizational performance. The research findings recommend BSC as an effective tool for managers in the hospitality sector to achieve high organizational performance