Search results
1 – 10 of 41Coproduction fundamentally changes the roles of citizens and governments. The purpose of this paper is to enhance the theoretical understanding of the transformative…
Abstract
Purpose
Coproduction fundamentally changes the roles of citizens and governments. The purpose of this paper is to enhance the theoretical understanding of the transformative changes in the structural order of the public domain that result from the coproduction of public services.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper builds upon both the literature on coproduction of public services, new public governance and on social contracts between citizens and the state to identify the nature, drivers and implications of the transformation. The argument is illustrated with examples from crime control and healthcare.
Findings
The analysis identified an institutional misfit and highlights four key issues that are key to the understanding of the structural transformation of public services: compensation for time and knowledge resources, responses to new forms of (in)equality, risk of conflicts between citizens and re-organizing accountability.
Research limitations/implications
The analysis highlights the need for further research into the implications of coproduction for government legitimacy, transfer of power, financial implications, representativeness and consequences for non-coproducing citizens.
Originality/value
This paper links instrumental debates about the coproduction of public services to fundamental debates about the relations between government and citizens and identifies substantial issues that are raised by this structural transformation in the public domain and that require new responses.
Details
Keywords
Maureen Bickley and Margaret Nowak
In recent years there has been considerable discussion of and some movement towards, harmonisation of governance structures and processes between the EU and North America…
Abstract
In recent years there has been considerable discussion of and some movement towards, harmonisation of governance structures and processes between the EU and North America in particular. Multilateral organisations (i.e. World Bank), the USA's Sarbanes Oxley and the expansion of the EU in 2004 have all provided added impetus for a broader focus on harmonisation or convergence. But is convergence possible? Can any ‘one size fits all’ approach to governance be consistent with divergent national legal and cultural systems? A qualitative study of Austrian company directors is used to investigate whether the recent development of a more open economy coupled with the global capital market is generating a convergent model of director conduct. It was apparent that a stakeholder approach, where stewardship theory best explains the processes to mediate director conduct, continues to best describe the Austrian way. This contrasts with ‘theory in use’ in Anglo-American practice which conforms to the tenets of Agency Theory. We conclude with a discussion of the implications for sustainability management.
Martijn F.L. Rademakers and Phillip J. McKnight
The Dutch potato sector went through a process of considerable concentration during the past two decades. The number of firms decreased substantially while production…
Abstract
The Dutch potato sector went through a process of considerable concentration during the past two decades. The number of firms decreased substantially while production levels increased. The process of restructuring was triggered by a combination of shifting consumer demands, internationalisation of markets, and concentration among food retailers. Many potato firms were unable to adjust to these developments and found themselves either for sale or bankrupt. Others engaged in mergers or strategic alliances to meet the changing demands. The resulting concentration process led to higher levels of both vertical and horizontal interdependence between the remaining firms. The rules of competition have changed: opposed to competing individually, successful potato firms achieve substantial competitive advantages through co‐operative inter‐firm arrangements that gain access to high‐quality raw materials, production capacity, and large customers. Consequently, managing inter‐firm co‐operation has become a strategic issue for firms in the potato supply chain.
Details
Keywords
Nathalie Fabry and Cyril Blanchet
Monaco is a simultaneously a destination, a state and a city, which belongs to the long list of places that aims to become smart. The purpose of this paper is to present…
Abstract
Purpose
Monaco is a simultaneously a destination, a state and a city, which belongs to the long list of places that aims to become smart. The purpose of this paper is to present Monaco’s transformation strategy from October 2017 to May 2019. It will present Monaco’s smart urban ecosystem as a meeting point between the destination and the smart city.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors develop the methodology as an exploratory observation of the state transformations. The methodology relies on an understanding of smart cities policy from an insider perspective, as one of the co-authors participates in the “Matrice Smart-City Monaco” program (Season 1: Tourism), on a media coverage analysis and in a semi-directive interview with a stakeholder of the digital transformation in Monaco.
Findings
The paper empirically and theoretically explores the following three hypotheses: H1 – being a smart city/destination is less a status than a process; H2 – a permeable state city challenges the boundaries between the city and the smart destination; and H3 – the conceptualization of the smart city requires a broader definition of who its engaged stakeholders are.
Research limitations/implications
The case of Monaco helps us to understand the role of tourism in a smart city and to deepen the link between “smart city” and “smart destination” from a theoretical point of view. Monaco offers us the opportunity to reinforce our understanding of the relationship between the smart city and the smart destination.
Originality/value
The study concerns a micro-state that aims to become smart using a top–down strategy. However, for a city to become smart, stakeholders including citizens must be able to support the process.
Details
Keywords
Since the end of the previous century social partners in different branches of industry have laid down measures to stimulate individual learning and competence development…
Abstract
Purpose
Since the end of the previous century social partners in different branches of industry have laid down measures to stimulate individual learning and competence development of workers in collective labour agreements. Special attention is given to stimulating learning demand among traditional non‐participants to lifelong learning, such as lower educated and older employees. The paper examines one such measure, the individual learning account (ILA).
Design/methodology/approach
This paper is based on a quasi‐experimental study, in which we evaluate the impact of ILA on learning intention and work floor learning culture is evaluated. The study focuses on lower educated employees in two sectors of employment: the elderly care sector and SME's in the technical installation (TI) sector. The point of departure is Ajzen'se theory of planned behaviour. In this study, we attempt to examine the effects of ILAs on intention to engage in learning activities and behavioural predictors such as attitude, perceived behavioural control and perceived learning culture. A number of authors point out the pivotal influence of supportive learning culture on learning behaviour, in which employer and employees are portrayed as partners. Therefore, for this study the variable perceived dialogical learning culture was constructed.
Findings
Differences were found in the effect of ILA on learning intention and perceived learning culture between both sectors. Especially, in TI companies ILA had significant effect on the learning intention of older employees and employees working in level three functions.
Originality/value
The paper assesses ILAs.
Details
Keywords
Piero Formica and Martin Curley
In the knowledge economy, greater togetherness is the prerequisite for innovating and having more: selflessness extends scope while selfishness increases limitations. But…
Abstract
In the knowledge economy, greater togetherness is the prerequisite for innovating and having more: selflessness extends scope while selfishness increases limitations. But human beings are not automatically attracted to innovation: between the two lies culture and cultural values vary widely, with the egoistic accent or the altruistic intonation setting the scene. In the representations of open innovation we submit to the reader’s attention, selfishness and selflessness are active in the cultural space.
Popularized in the early 2000s, open innovation is a systematic process by which ideas pass among organizations and travel along different exploitation vectors. With the arrival of multiple digital transformative technologies and the rapid evolution of the discipline of innovation, there was a need for a new approach to change, incorporating technological, societal and policy dimensions. Open Innovation 2.0 (OI2) – the result of advances in digital technologies and the cognitive sciences – marks a shift from incremental gains to disruptions that effect a great step forward in economic and social development. OI2 seeks the unexpected and provides support for the rapid scale-up of successes.
‘Nothing is more powerful than an idea whose time has come’ – this thought, attributed to Victor Hugo, tells us how a great deal is at stake with open innovation. Amidon and other scholars have argued that the twenty-first century is not about ‘having more’ but about ‘being more’. The promise of digital technologies and artificial intelligence is that they enable us to extend and amplify human intellect and experience. In the so-called experience economy, users buy ‘experiences’ rather than ‘services’. OI2 is a paradigm about ‘being more’ and seeking innovations that bring us all collectively on a trajectory towards sustainable intelligent living.
Details
Keywords
Akansha Mer and Amarpreet Singh Virdi
Introduction: Human resource management (HRM) is going through a transformation phase due to the pandemic. The COVID-19 crisis compelled the employees to work virtually…
Abstract
Introduction: Human resource management (HRM) is going through a transformation phase due to the pandemic. The COVID-19 crisis compelled the employees to work virtually. To mitigate the effects of COVID-19, several organisations heavily invested in artificial intelligence (AI) in the realm of HRM.
Purpose: With limited studies on the paradigm shift in HRM post-pandemic and the role of AI, the study investigates and proposes a conceptual framework for the paradigm shift in HRM practices post-COVID-19 pandemic and the significance of AI. Furthermore, the study investigates the outcomes of the use of AI in HRM for organisations and employees.
Methodology: A comprehensive review of the literature based on the guidelines of Tranfield, Denyer, and Smart (2003) and Crossan and Apaydin (2010) has been followed. A systematic literature review assisted in critically analysing, synthesising, and mapping the extant literature by identifying the broad themes involved.
Findings: COVID-19-related economic disruption has led to a paradigm shift in HRM practices. AI-enabled HRM practices are now centred around remote and contingent workforce management, mindfulness, social capital, increasing employee engagement, reskilling and upskilling towards new competencies, etc. AI is making remote work seamless through smooth recruitment and selection process, onboarding, career and development, tracking and managing the performance, facilitating learning, and talent management. Post-pandemic, AI-powered tools based on data mining (DM), predictive analytics, big data analytics, natural language processing (NLP), intelligent robots, machine learning (ML), virtual (VR)/augmented reality (AR), etc., have paved the way for managing the HRM practices effectively, thereby leading to enhanced organisational performance, employee well-being, automation, and reduced cost.
Details
Keywords
Reinhard Schumacher and Scott Scheall
During the last years of his life, the mathematician Karl Menger worked on a biography of his father, the economist and founder of the Austrian School of Economics, Carl…
Abstract
During the last years of his life, the mathematician Karl Menger worked on a biography of his father, the economist and founder of the Austrian School of Economics, Carl Menger. The younger Menger never finished the work. While working in the Menger collections at Duke University’s David M. Rubenstein Rare Book and Manuscript Library, we discovered draft chapters of the biography, a valuable source of information given that relatively little is known about Carl Menger’s life nearly a hundred years after his death. The unfinished biography covers Carl Menger’s family background and his life through early 1889. In this chapter, the authors discuss the biography and the most valuable new insights it provides into Carl Menger’s life, including Carl Menger’s family, his childhood, his student years, his time working as a journalist and newspaper editor, his early scientific career, and his relationship with Crown Prince Rudolf.
Details
Keywords
The latest information from the magazine chemist is extremely valuable. He has dealt with milk‐adulteration and how it is done. His advice, if followed, might, however…
Abstract
The latest information from the magazine chemist is extremely valuable. He has dealt with milk‐adulteration and how it is done. His advice, if followed, might, however, speedily bring the manipulating dealer before a magistrate, since the learned writer's recipe is to take a milk having a specific gravity of 1030, and skim it until the gravity is raised to 1036; then add 20 per cent. of water, so that the gravity may be reduced to 1030, and the thing is done. The advice to serve as “fresh from the cow,” preferably in a well‐battered milk‐measure, might perhaps have been added to this analytical gem.
Sandra Verhülsdonk, Ann-Kristin Folkerts, Barbara Höft, Tillmann Supprian, Josef Kessler and Elke Kalbe
The purpose of this study is to collect the first empirical data on the cognitive state of elderly prisoners in Germany and to examine associations between cognitive…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to collect the first empirical data on the cognitive state of elderly prisoners in Germany and to examine associations between cognitive function and sociodemographic, clinical and incarceration characteristics.
Design/methodology/approach
All prisoners aged 60 years and older of five prisons in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, were asked to participate. The cognitive screening instruments mini-mental state examination (MMSE) and the DemTect were used to assess global cognition. Executive functions were tested with the trail making test and the frontal-assessment-battery. The Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9) was used to assess participants’ affective state.
Findings
The sample of this study consisted of 58 prisoners with a mean age of 65.52 years (standard deviation = 6.03); 82.8% are male. Using the MMSE with age- and education-corrected z-scores, 36.9% of the prisoners showed marginal or impaired global cognition scores. Using the DemTect, 41.4% of the prisoners were classified as being cognitively impaired. Up to 40% of the prisoners showed deficits in executive functioning and around 60% of the prisoners showed depressive symptoms. The correlation analysis revealed significant associations between cognitive scores and age (rho = –0.335, p = 0.014), education (rho = 0.309, p = 0.020), sentence duration (rho = 0.409, p = 0.007) and duration of current incarceration (rho = 0.302, p = 0.043). The DemTect total score was significantly associated with the PHQ-9 (rho = –0.335, p = 0.016).
Practical implications
A large group of the prisoners showed a higher prevalence of cognitive dysfunction than that observed in same-age people who are not incarcerated. Taken together, there is an urgent need for an adequate management of older cognitively impaired prisoners including routine cognitive testing and guidelines-oriented treatment of cognitive symptoms.
Originality/value
This study has several strengths. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study examining the cognitive and affective state in a German prison population. The authors considered female and male prisoners, as well as different prison settings, representing a realistic prison sample. The authors used several neuropsychological instruments to get a more detailed insight into the older prisoners’ cognitive status while trying to consider the economy of time and possible attention deficits to prevent dropouts during testing.
Details