Governance in the High North: Rhetoric vs reality in the Barents region

Source at http://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi-fe2019060618731.This special issue of Barents Studies attempts to contribute to a better understanding of the role of local governance in strategic development of the High North, with examples from the Barents Region. The High North regions have gained increased attention for their natural resources (including fish, oil, gas, minerals, tourist destinations, new transport solutions, and digital infrastructure), for creating business potential, and for opportunities to fuel continuous global economic growth (AMAP 2017). National governments increasingly expect key institutional actors in High North regions to take the responsibility for managing those vast resources in order to further local and regional economic and social development

Understanding the role of value-focused thinking in idea management

In a couple of classical studies, Keeney proposed two sets of variables labelled as value focused thinking (VFT) and alternative-focused thinking (AFT). Value-focused thinking (VFT), he argued, is a creative method that centres on the different decision objectives and how as many alternatives as possible may be generated from them. Alternative-focused thinking (AFT), on the other hand, is a method in which the decision maker takes notice of all the available alternatives and then makes a choice that seems to fit the problem best. The impact of these two methods on idea generation was measured using a sample of employees. The results revealed that employees in the value-focused thinking condition (VFT) produced fewer ideas. Thus, value-focused thinking (VFT) is not only able to facilitate ideation fluency but also to constrain it. Factors such as cognitive effort and motivation may play a part here. However, the quality of the ideas was judged to be higher in terms of creativity and innovativeness. Hence, value-focused thinking (VFT) seems to have a positive impact on the quality of ideas in terms of creativity and innovativeness regardless of ideation fluency. Implications for the design of idea management systems are discussed

Employee evaluation of leader-initiated crisis preparation

Crisis prevention plans are usually evaluated based on their effects in terms of preventing or limiting organizational crisis. In this survey-based study, the focus was instead on how such plans influence employees’ reactions in terms of risk perception and well-being. Five different organizations were addressed in the study. Hypothesis 1 tested the assumption that leadership crisis preparation would lead to lower perceived risk among the employees. Hypothesis 2 tested the conjecture that it would also lead to a higher degree of well-being. Both hypotheses were supported. The results and their implications are discussed

The effects of risk on initial trust formation

This paper seeks to expand our understanding of initial trust by looking at how variation in risk influences the nature of trust and the process of initial trust formation. Four hypotheses were tested in two experiments involving participants with and without work experience. A first hypothesis suggested a positive relationship between a general propensity to trust and initial trust; a second hypothesis, a negative relationship between risk and initial trust; whereas a third hypothesis posited that risk would increase the importance participants place on benevolence and integrity. A fourth hypothesis suggested that risk would have a positive and moderating influence on the effect of out-of-role behavior when presented after role-conformant in-role behavior. Findings are presented and discussed and practical implications suggested

Special issue on “Governance in the High North : Rhetoric and reality in the Barents region”

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Trusting is for doing: on goals, mindsets, and trust

In this paper we seek to disentangle goals and trust, and argue that people’s goals while interacting with other people is likely to influence the experience of trust. This again builds on the assumptions that trust is not merely a basis for decisions but a factor that influences (often favorably) other valued outcomes. Our experience of trust helps us display trust which furthers relational goals (e.g. developing work-relationships). Thus, this paper adopts a pragmatic perspective on trust (Fiske, 1992; James, 1890): Paraphrasing Fiske (1992) and replacing thinking with trusting we argue that “trusting is for doing”. People’s experience of trust constitutes not only a basis for decisions but serves important ends in its own right, enabling people to interact with ease and confidence. People’s experience of trust not only influences peoples’ selection of goals but also influences peoples’ ability to attain those goals once selected. Trust enhances peoples’ ability to effectively influence other people in that people tend to trust people who trust (Williams, 2007, Weber, Malhotra & Murnighan, 2005). Trusting likewise reduces the load on peoples’ information processing capacity, and enables people to more effectively focus on task-interaction enhancing task performance (Schmeichel & Baumeister, 2004). The effects of goals on trust we suggest tend to be automatic, often unconscious and uncontrolled (Bargh & Williams, 2007)

Can intuitive and analytical decision styles explain managers' evaluation of information technology?

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to clarify how IT managers' decision styles affect their evaluation of information technology. Design/methodology/approach – Four different decision styles were assessed in a leadership test directed towards IT managers. Each style included two dimensions: confidence judgment ability and decision heuristic usage. Participants belonging to each style were interviewed and their answers analysed with regard to their reasoning about central areas of IT management. Findings – Results suggest that a decision style combining intuitive and analytical capabilities lead to better evaluations of information technology. Originality/vale – The results of the present study are valuable for the understanding of how decision styles impact on IT management in everyday life

Employee Reactions to Leader-Initiated Crisis Preparation: Core Dimensions

Crisis prevention plans are usually evaluated based on their effects in terms of preventing or limiting organizational crisis. In this survey-based study, the focus was instead on how such plans influence employees’ reactions in terms of risk perception and well-being. Five different organizations were addressed in the study. Hypothesis 1 tested the assumption that leadership crisis preparation would lead to lower perceived risk among the employees. Hypothesis 2 tested the conjecture that it would also lead to a higher degree of well-being. Both hypotheses were supported. The results and their implications are discussed