Bureaucratization in Public Research Institutions

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the nature of bureaucratization within public research bodies and its relationship to scientific performance, focusing on an Italian case-study. The main finding is that the bureaucratization of the research sector has two dimensions: public research labs have academic bureaucratization since researchers spend an increasing part of their time in administrative matters (i.e., preparing grant applications, managing grants/projects, and so on); whereas universities mainly have administrative bureaucratization generated by the increase over time of administrative staff in comparison with researchers and faculty. In addition, I show that research units with higher bureaucratization have lower scientific performance

From government to governance: external influences on business risk management

The influence of external organizations and pressures on business risk management practices has hitherto been examined through the influence of state regulatory regimes on businesses. This article concentrates on key socio-legal concerns about the influence of the law in social and economic life. We know that the sources of regulation and risk management are diversifying beyond the state. What we do not have is much empirically informed research about the range of sources influencing the business world and in particular the weighting of influence exercised by them. In this paper we explore the understandings regulatory actors have of the different external pressures on business risk management through an empirical study of the understandings of those in the food retail sector about the management of food safety and food hygiene risks. A broader objective is to throw some further light onto the debate about regulation within and beyond the state

Regulation lite: the rise of emissions trading

Emissions trading is the governmentally - promoted hope for a sustainable world. In different contexts, trading regimes display varying potential – both in absolute terms and in comparison with other regulatory instruments. Emissions trading, however, is a device that raises urgent issues regarding its objectives, cost-effectiveness, fairness, transparency, and legitimacy. Its use places emphasis on its ‘acceptability’ and the virtues of regulation that is ‘lite’ because it is non-threatening to the most powerful interests. Emissions trading is resonant with assumptions that are highly contentious - notably that it is acceptable because it involves no losers, or because, in desperate global circumstances, we have no choice but to use it. There is a need to confront the difficult issues presented by emissions trading; to face the challenges of combining ‘market’ and ‘democratic’ systems of legitimation; and to avoid taking refuge in all too comfortable beliefs in cumulative checks and balances