Envisioning Nevada’s future: Goals & strategies for advancing our quality of life

Nevada’s severe downturn has brought to light many of the long-term challenges facing the state. Not only is its economy subject to painful swings, but Nevada’s primary drivers— consumer services (primarily gaming, hospitality and housing) and resource extraction—will provide less support than they have in past business cycles. Less economic vitality will make it harder to offer Nevadans the quality of life they expect. The importance of the economy to quality of life is equally clear—quality of life is a hollow promise without a healthy and supportive economy. Similarly, a proper fiscal structure—both in terms of spending and revenues—is critical to delivering on a quality of life promise. Nevada’s consumer and hospitality industries will feel downward pressure on their revenues as aging baby boomers scramble to make up for low lifetime savings. The state’s gaming industry faces new competition across the U.S. and abroad. And in rural Nevada, the growth of primary resource industries will be modest, since commodity prices (other than for gold) are not expected to return to their recent peaks for several years. The state’s long-term growth is still expected to exceed the national average. Nevada’s relative cost advantages, its hospitable culture, and its vast natural beauty will continue to attract migrants, mitigating shifts in demand for its core industries. Yet population gains, while still significant, will not match the trend of the last 30 years. Residential, retail and hotel construction will therefore no longer be a primary driver of regional growth. Nevada’s slowing growth potential is troubling because, even during the state’s boom years, many of its residents’ needs were not being met. For example, a wide range of educational yardsticks suggests Nevada could do a better job of teaching its children and training its workers. Tight state and local budgets notwithstanding, now is the time to make the structural changes and investments Nevada needs, lest its obstacles become insurmountable in the years ahead. While Nevada’s challenges were put into sharper focus by the recession, these issues have been known and discussed for many years. State and private agencies have developed numerous strategic plans, with the goal of providing public services more efficiently. There have also been numerous studies related to the state’s economic structure, but little has been done to act on their findings. It is time for us to address the issues directly, to act on them and to achieve meaningful progress in the six focus areas detailed in this report. It should also be recognized that there is interdependence and crossover among the six focus areas

Stakeholder capitalism, corporate governance and firm value

We consider the advantages and disadvantages of stakeholder-oriented firms that are concerned with employees and suppliers as well as shareholders compared to shareholder-oriented firms. Societies with stakeholder-oriented firms have higher prices, lower output, and can have greater firm value than shareholder-oriented societies. In some circumstances, firms may voluntarily choose to be stakeholder-oriented because this increases their value. Consumers that prefer to buy from stakeholder firms can also enforce a stakeholder society. With globalization entry by stakeholder firms is relatively more attractive than entry by shareholder firms for all societies. JEL Classification: D02, D21, G34, L13, L2

Management of Rural Water Services in Nicaragua: A Systematic Network Approach to Evaluating Stakeholder Alignment

Water sector literature attributes a substantial cause of rural water system failure in developing countries to poor alignment between water service stakeholders. This study aimed to investigate a means for assessing stakeholder alignment by comparing the systemic interaction of stakeholder values, where the term ‘stakeholder values’ refers to aspects stakeholders believe are necessary to ensure rural water services are sustainable. The research held focus groups with key stakeholder groups involved in the management of rural water infrastructure in Terrabona, Nicaragua, to identify stakeholder values, and then used cross-impact analysis to evaluate how these values interacted to form stakeholder value networks (SVNs). Using normalized betweenness centrality measures, the structures of SVNs were compared to determine alignment. Results from this study showed high levels of stakeholder alignment on the topics of water resources and technology for the sustainability of rural water systems, while there was marked nonalignment regarding the involvement of local government and organizations in the management of water infrastructure. This study offers compelling evidence for future studies to assess stakeholder alignment by identifying and structurally analyzing SVNs

Proposals for community discussion : a quality future for the recreational marron fishery : a five-year draft strategy to ensure the long-term sustainability of the marron fishery

While some of the factors threatening the future of the marron fishery can be managed via traditional fisheries controls, many fall outside of the Department of Fisheries’ jurisdiction and require a ‘whole of Government’ approach to management. To help ensure a quality future for the recreational marron fishery, the Recreational Freshwater Fisheries Stakeholder Sub-committee (RFFSS) has now developed a set of draft management proposals designed to form the basis of a five-year management plan for the fishery

A five year management strategy for the recreational marron fishing.

In its discussion paper (Fisheries Management Paper No.198), which was widely distributed and publicised, the Recreational Freshwater Fisheries Stakeholder Sub-Committee (RFFSS) of the Recreational Fishing Advisory Committee (RFAC) put forward a range of proposals for community discussion. These proposals were developed after an assessment of historic catch information and the consideration of scientific advice. The proposals also took into account the outcomes and recommendations of the previous review of the recreational marron fishery that was undertaken in 2002. The discussion paper attracted reasonable comment, with 78 written submissions being received from recreational fishers and other stakeholders. The RFFSS would like to thank those people and organisations that took the time to provide this valuable feedback. All recommendations contained in this final report were only made after detailed consideration of the issues that were raised in submissions, along with the action needed to be taken to protect the long-term sustainability of our marron stocks

'To hell with it': a case study examination of organisational trustworthiness, and dependent stakeholder-organisation relations in the Milaki plant

This paper investigates trust worthiness and dependent stakeholder relations with a contextualised case-study of the Milaki plant in Greece, owned and operated by a multinational concrete aggregates firm. We investigate the opinions of community stakeholders concerning operational decisions made by the case-study firm in multiple challenging contexts (e.g. the Greek economic recession). We focus on the community stakeholder with regard to trustworthiness of the firm i.e. ability, integrity and benevolence (Mayer et al., 1995). With this novel emphasis on the dependent (less powerful) stakeholder of the local community, we can make a contribution by bringing together the stakeholder literature with the literature on trust (Greenwood and Van Buren, 2010). How organisational trustworthiness unfolds in the organisation-stakeholder relationship is under-researched, especially in challenging contexts. This focus enables us to shed light upon how decisions perceived as ethically questionable by the community, and which potentially breach trust, change the dynamic of dependent-stakeholder to organisation relationship. The imp act of this change and the subsequent implications of it for the stakeholder-organisation relationship will be explored in the full paper

Stakeholder engagement as a facilitator of organizational learning

This paper examines the relationship between stakeholder engagement and competence building. Following the dual perspective of the firm, which indicated that managers deal with both transactions and competences concurrently, we argue that stakeholder interactions also concern both transaction cost reduction and value creation. Based on a review of the extant literature, we incorporated a micro-macro connection between organizational learning and competence building. Further to this, we developed a conceptual framework by linking stakeholder engagement and organizational learning. This framework demonstrates that stakeholder relations may have significant effects on organizational learning and thus stakeholder engagement can play the role of facilitator in building firm competences

Stakeholder engagement in water governance as social learning: lessons from practice

The OECD Principles on Water Governance set out various requirements for stakeholder engagement. Coupled with conceptualizations of social learning, this article asks how we define and enact stakeholder engagement and explores the actual practice of engagement of stakeholders in three fields of water governance. The results suggest that a key consideration is the purpose of the stakeholder engagement, requiring consideration of its ethics, process, roles and expected outcomes. While facilitators cannot be held accountable if stakeholder engagement ‘fails’ in terms of social learning, they are responsible for ensuring that the enabling conditions for social learning are met

Purpose and perspective: using soft systems methods in stakeholder analysis

Sustainable development has brought with it a broader consideration of the role of different stakeholders. Considerable scholarship has gone into demonstrating that purpose and perspective matter, and that stakeholder groupings based on these can be much more complex than basic social or economic variables might suggest. Yet an examination of the stakeholder analysis tools in the management literature reveals simplistic assumptions and boundary judgements, and a reification of purpose that conceals stakeholder assumptions, values and goals. In this paper, we explore an alternative form of stakeholder analysis, based on Checkland's Soft Systems Methodology. At its core is a suggestion that a central difficulty with standard stakeholder analysis is that sustainability is not framed in the same way by different stakeholders and it is unreasonable to analyse their stake in it as though their framing was identical. The paper describes how some of the methods developed within SSM can be applied to make stakeholder analysis more powerful and more flexible, and discusses some of the implications for CSR and sustainability

Sustainability Standards and Stakeholder Engagement: Lessons From Carbon Markets

Stakeholders play an increasingly active role in private governance, including development of standards for measuring sustainability. Building on prior studies focused on standards and stakeholder engagement, we use an innovation management theoretical lens to compare stakeholder engagement and standards developed in two carbon markets: the Climate Action Reserve and the U.N.’s Clean Development Mechanism. We develop and test hypotheses regarding how different processes of stakeholder engagement in standard development affect the number, identity, and age of stakeholders involved, as well as the variation and quality of the resulting standards. In doing so, we contribute to the growing literature on stakeholder engagement in developing sustainability standards