Search results

Kotter’s framework of change management adapted to the situation of public policy implementation under the leadership of a civil service officer in the rural areas of a developing economy in South Asia.

This case has been written using the primary data collected from the protagonist through personal and computer-based interviews. Some of the documents associated with the event shared by the protagonist are also reproduced as case exhibits. Secondary data from government official websites were also used to enrich the case.

Mahbubnagar, an arid agricultural district in central India faced the threat of a water crisis owing to the unscientific water extraction by the resident farmers. The government appointed a task force to investigate the problem. The team executed the idea to harvest excess water from the fields through a cheap and efficient method. Though it showed spectacular results in the initial months, the farmers gave up the innovation soon. When the team met two years later, they were shocked by the unenthusiastic response of the farmers. This case pertains to the failure of policy innovations and change management in government.

This case is useful for undergraduate-level courses in public management, public policy and governance with modules in change management, innovation management, rural development and programme implementation. Training modules for novice public service professionals and programme management personnel in government organisations. Elective courses on public policy, government relations and public sector management for undergraduate students of business administration.

The purpose of this paper is to examine major transformation portfolio governing practices. Previous research focuses on the structure of project portfolio governance and is relatively silent on micro-practices of governing. This paper intends to respond to this gap.

This qualitative case study draws upon practice approaches and the theoretical lens of organisational routines. The empirical inquiry is conducted across six major transformation portfolios in two UK central government departments. The data are collected through conducting semi-structured interviews and gathering documentary reports and analysed by adopting an abductive approach.

The findings highlight that two governing practices that have not been previously discussed in the literature: structuring the policy relationship and structuring the business relationship. These practices can be associated with the complex ownership system of the UK central government. The findings also show that in complex ownership systems owners may have different governing and supporting orientations. The micro-dynamics of these governing practices illustrate that the ecology of governing practices is complex, both in terms of the co-existence of complementary and competitive relationships between practices, and in terms of bundles of practices enacting different control regimes.

This qualitative case study supports further inquiry into major transformation portfolio governing and complex ownership systems.

The paper adopts a governance-as-practice approach and examines governing major transformation portfolios.

The purpose of this paper is to study the role of budget speech in the Malaysian Government as a “hybrid” for governing both the economy and social cohesion.

Through archival research, a governmentality framework and the concept of hybrids (Miller et al., 2008) are employed to explore the role of budget speech in articulating ways in which the government managed the economic and social agenda.

Previous governmentality studies have primarily been conducted on economic performance in western liberal democracies. Such research has illustrated the framework, measures undertaken by the government and choices of the governable person in actions for economic life. This paper applies these studies to a South East Asian context and finds that budget speeches between 2007 and 2011 are hybrids, in that they set out ways of achieving the two key priorities of post-independence Malaysia – the need to promote economic development whilst also fostering social harmony. Most notably, it finds that economic development was the dominant priority in those budget speeches held prior to the global financial crisis and 2008 general election, whereas social cohesion assumed this position from 2009 onwards.

The findings have both practical and social implications for Malaysia, but also other jurisdictions that are using budget speeches to try to promote economic reforms and foster social cohesion.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the role of performance measurement systems as technologies of government in the operationalisation of smart city programmes. It answers the research question: how do the development and use of performance measurement systems support smart cities in the achievement of their goals?

This paper presents a longitudinal case study that uses an interventionist approach to investigate the possibilities and limitations of the use of performance measurement systems as technologies of government in a smart city. Interpretations are theoretically informed by the Foucauldian governmentality framework (Foucault, 2009) and by public sector performance measurement literature.

The findings address the benefits and criticalities confronting a smart city that introduces new performance measurement systems as a technology of government. Such technologies become problematic tools when the city network is characterised by a fragmentation of inter-departmental processes, and when forms of resistance emerge due to a lack of process owners, horizontal accountability and cooperation among involved parties.

This paper is based on a case study of a single smart city, and outlines the need for both comparative and multidisciplinary analyses in order to analyse the causes and effects of smart city challenges.

This paper offers a critical understanding of the role of accounting in the smart city. The ineffectiveness of performance measurement systems is related to the multiple roles of such technologies of government, which may lead to a temporary paralysis in the achievement of smart city goals and programmes.

The purpose of this paper is to test if activism by civil society organisations (CSOs hereafter) in successfully mobilising resistance to the Government of Ghana “collateralization” of gold resources and other mineral royalties in 2020 (dubbed the “Agyapa deal”) espouse tenets of Foucault’s (2009) “governmentality” and “counter conduct” dispositions.

This paper draws on Dean’s (1999) discussion of government analytics to highlight how CSO activism can simultaneously challenge government practice and share in it. This paper uses an evidence-based and interpretive qualitative content analysis approach. This paper relied on secondary data sources from 1 January 2020 to 21 August 2021. Data collection involved an extensive review of secondary materials concerning the Agyapa deal, relying on the author's local knowledge to identify the likely sources of information.

This paper exposes how the counteractions of CSOs, underpinned by the desire for so-called “good governance”, invariably extend governmentality and other neo-liberal ideals. In this case, CSOs' actions espoused the ideals of marketisation, extended governable spaces, engrained subjectivation and treated citizens as incapable of formulating and advancing their desires without overt help. Secondly, it provides evidence that massive deployment of accountability and other calculable practices, however wilful, complement efforts at shaping public opinion.

CSO counter-conduct is merely symbolic rather than substantive. Substantive counter-conduct requires the citizenry to actively lead the problematisation process, holding CSOs accountable for acting on their behalf. The current trajectory where CSO accountability is primarily to their international financiers, predominantly neo-liberal advocates, raises questions about “in whose interest they seek another form of governance?” Practically, the splinter of interests that may emanate from citizenry directly led counter-conduct can affect garnering the critical mass needed to force a policy change. That said, however, there is a case for citizenry “making themselves” rather than “being made” within the governmentality process.

To the best of the author’s knowledge, this is the first application of the Foucauldian and Dean framework to a data set from Ghana.

Utilising concepts drawn from the governmentality literature, the purpose of this paper is to examine the adoption of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRSs) in the UK’s devolved administrations of Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales in order to assess why they were adopted and how their introduction has been governed.

This research applies a combination of three different approaches, namely: a content analysis; an anonymous online questionnaire; and semi-structured interviews.

These include: the transition has had minimal impact upon policy setting and the information produced to aid budgeting and decision making; IFRSs are not entirely appropriate for the public sector; the time, cost and effort involved outweighed the benefits; public sector accounting has become overly-complicated; and the transition is not perceived as part of a wider privatisation programme.

As this study focuses upon the three UK devolved administrations, the findings may not be applicable in a wider setting.

Public sector change must be adequately resourced, carefully planned, with appropriate systems, trained staff and interdisciplinary project teams; accounting change should be based on value for money; and a single, coherent financial regime for the way in which government uses budgets, presents estimates to Parliament and publishes its resource accounts should be implemented.

This study highlights that accounting change is not just a technical issue and, while it can facilitate a more business-like environment and enhance accountability, all those affected by the changes may not have the requisite skills to fully utilise the (new) information available.

Aim of the present monograph is the economic analysis of the role of MNEs regarding globalisation and digital economy and in parallel there is a reference and examination of some legal aspects concerning MNEs, cyberspace and e‐commerce as the means of expression of the digital economy. The whole effort of the author is focused on the examination of various aspects of MNEs and their impact upon globalisation and vice versa and how and if we are moving towards a global digital economy.

This paper has two purposes. The first is to help elected officials address the issue of public accountability for crises and improve productivity and risk management in the process by outsourcing some traditional government functions to civil society based organizations that can do a better job. The second is to mobilize researchers to explore the implications of the shift from “governing” to “governance” for risk management and the development of risk culture.

After exploring some case studies, the paper examines some leading resources on the shift from “governing” to “governance”. The paper goes on to present an alternative approach for managing public risks.

In order to improve the management of public risks, and given the financial constraints faced by most governments, there is a need for a deliberate effort to entice civil society based organizations to help government identify and alert the public to possible risks. In other words, civil society based organizations that make claims for public resources in the name of good governance should, as necessary, play the role of a watchdog when it comes to public safety and guarding of the public interest in that regard.

Use of market forces and non‐governmental entities to replace government agencies and regulations that cannot assure the public safety because they are difficult to implement, expensive or likely to be compromised due to various forms of corruption and politics.

The paper advocates substitution of “management by exception” by a “management by risk” approach and the fostering of an administrative culture that is more mindful of the need to recognize and address possible risks. Such an approach, the paper claims, is a more promising approach than an increase in government regulation.

The paper aims to analyse accounting rationalities and practices which lie behind biodiversity offsetting. The way in which accounting functions as a technology of government through the practice of biodiversity offsetting is to be considered and its effects examined.

Governmentality is drawn upon to examine ways in which power and authority are exercised in a single case study setting. Data analysed comprise corporate and industry websites and documents, corporate reports, public documentation and interviews. The arena concept is utilised to highlight contestation in the case, and signal concerns regarding the wider impact of the use of particular accounting rationalities and technologies in the context of biodiversity offsetting.

The paper provides empirical insights into how accounting for biodiversity offsetting rationales and practices constitute an attempt to reproduce power relations in favour of particular parties and foster disciplinary effects. The practice of biodiversity offsetting is problematised through critiquing accounting's governing role in the areas of biodiversity quantification and biodiversity trading. Questions are raised as to whether biodiversity offsetting enabled by accounting techniques is leading to greater accountability and ultimately protection of biodiversity, or whether it represents a mechanism through which particular species and habitat destruction can be justified, or at least hidden in its accounting.

While biodiversity offsetting research is not uncommon within science and law, the analysis of how accounting functions as a technology of government within biodiversity offsetting is believed to be unique.