Search results

This study seeks to provide further testing of access in the context of government – community relations within the political context of the Republic of North Macedonia. The study analyses relationship cultivation strategy of access and explains how it contributes to achieving trust and relationship satisfaction in government–community relations. This paper also provides insights into the importance of access to achieving positive government–community relations based on mutual trust and satisfaction.

For this research, a qualitative inquiry was conducted, and qualitative in-depth interviewing was used as the main research method. In total, 39 interviews were conducted: 12 interviews with Macedonian civil servants, eight interviews with Albanian civil servants and 19 interviews with Albanians.

The findings of this study showed citizens not to have enough access to government and its institutions. Besides, the results showed access to be crucial to building positive government–community relations based on mutual trust and satisfaction. In particular, discrimination and social distance were crucial in building trust between government and citizens.

The study provided evidence on the importance and contribution of the cultivation strategy of access to government-community relationships in general and to the relational outcomes of trust and satisfaction in particular. The findings supported the initial assumptions that access constitutes an important factor in predicting the government–community relationship quality.

Enthusiasm for hosting mega sport events has been dampened mainly due to the opposition of local communities. Although the use of public relations that aims for two-way communication to build mutual understanding and the long-term relationship could be an effective tool in diminishing the opposition, little research exists that interprets the social concern with public relations theoretical lens. In this light, the primary purpose of the present study was to conceptualise government-public relationships in the context of mega sport events and to develop a valid and psychometrically sound scale to measure the relationship quality between two entities.

An initial pool of 23 potential government-public relationship items was drawn through item generation processes, including research synthesis and content validity. Then, this study collected 254 respondents via online surveys and split the total sample into two sets for exploratory factor analysis and (n = 127) and confirmatory factor analysis (n = 127).

As a result, the scale of the government-public relationships consists of 17 items representing three dimensions: control mutuality, trust and satisfaction.

The developed government-public relationship scale furnishes event marketers and researchers with a solid framework and a measurement tool for empirical examinations. The current research reveals that the dimensionality, reliability and validity of the three latent government-public relationships dimensions are satisfactory while failing to meet the general consensus that commitment is an important dimension of the existing organisation-public relationships scale.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how a clustered foreign firm’s network ties of social capital and government relationship may affect its institutional legitimacy and performance for clustered firms in emerging economies. To accomplish this task, the authors identify network ties (e.g. bridging ties and strong ties) and show, for each, the direct effects on institutional legitimacy and organizational performance. The findings show that bridging ties, strong ties, and government relationship directly and significantly impact organizational performance.

This study used the two-step approach suggested by Anderson and Gerbing (1988). The first step uses confirmatory factor analysis to validate the psychometric properties of the measurement scales. The second step then uses structural equation modeling to examine the proposed hypotheses. The statistical software LISREL 8.80 was used for the data analysis.

This paper finds that industrial clusters serve an important legitimizing function for clustered firms. The corporate ties (both bridging and strong ties), institutional legitimacy, and governmental relationships all play a positive role in organizational performance in emerging economies. The government relationships are also found to have a positive effect on institutional legitimacy. The institutional legitimacy can develop from industrial clustering. The foreign enterprises within a cluster should pay attention to their vertical and horizontal relationships.

First, the questionnaires cannot be verified if these instructions were followed in each instance (because the responses were simply returned by mail). Second, this study grouped all foreign firms into one cluster. Other foreign firms may find that culture has different effects on their organizational performances in emerging economies. Third, the relationships and impacts of various factors were not investigated within the theoretical framework proposed in this study. Fourth, the study did not address the heterogeneity of domestic and foreign firms. Fifth, the study only focusses on the textile industry.

The institutional legitimacy can develop from industrial clustering. In order to make a good impression on the local government, clustered firms should adhere to government policy, hire more local workers and buy local raw materials. The foreign enterprises in emerging economies should recognize that, being inside of an industrial cluster, it is important to have strong ties with other cluster members and to interact frequently and honestly with the relevant government agencies and organizations. To enrich resource-utilizing and reduce their liability of foreignness, foreign firms within clusters should seek to increase their firms’ network ties and establish good relationships with local governments to obtain competitive advantage.

This study aims at filling that gap by using the concepts of strong ties, bridging ties of social capital, institutional legitimacy, and government relationship to understand how clustered firms influence institutionalization through corporate strategies. The analysis not only helps extend the literature on network ties configuration, but also expands the literature on institutionalization. The study explores how clustered firms actively built up their own advantageous positions and then combine these with their original passive interests to favorably enhance their competitiveness in rapidly changing and institutionally unstable emerging economies.

First, connects existing theories to provide an integrated theoretical framework for understanding the roles of social capital and institutional legitimacy. Second, provides evidence to the literature by examining how network ties and government relationship may jointly influence the performance for clustered foreign firms in emerging economies, an area largely ignored in prior research. Third, provides one theoretical lens through which different outcomes of social capital and institutional issues can be analyzed. Fourth, the authors put forward a relationship capability and an institutional capability model to study how firms can avoid risk and obtain benefits by clustering in emerging economies.

Public procurement activities have long been treated as a minor subset of industrial or business-to-business buying. Consequently, the literature reports sparse research on the nature of government buying or how commercial firms can successfully market to the government. While this lack of research may not have been critical with respect to traditional public buying, recent procurement reforms and new contracting arrangements suggest our knowledge of business-to-business buying is inadequate with respect to the new environment of public buying and government/business relationships. One important and unique issue is how to handle the relationship with business suppliers during the contract implementation process. This paper proposes a taxonomy of government/business relationships as an organizing framework for understanding the complexities of buyer-seller relationships in government contract implementation. Archival case studies provide illustrations and justification for the taxonomy.

Citizens are substantial stakeholders in every e-government system, thus their willingness to use and ability to access the system are critical. Unequal access and information and communication technology usage, which is known as digital divide, however has been identified as one of the major obstacles to the implementation of e-government system. As digital divide inhibits citizen’s acceptance to e-government, it should be overcome despite the lack of deep theoretical understanding on this issue. This research aimed to investigate the digital divide and its direct impact on e-government system success of local governments in Indonesia as well as indirect impact through the mediation role of trust. In order to get a comprehensive understanding of digital divide, this study introduced a new type of digital divide, the innovativeness divide.

The research problems were approached by applying two-stage sequential mixed method research approach comprising of both qualitative and quantitative studies. In the first phase, an initial research model was proposed based on a literature review. Semi-structured interview with 12 users of e-government systems was then conducted to explore and enhance this initial research model. Data collected in this phase were analyzed with a two-stage content analysis approach and the initial model was then amended based on the findings. As a result, a comprehensive research model with 16 hypotheses was proposed for examination in the second phase.

In the second phase, quantitative method was applied. A questionnaire was developed based on findings in the first phase. A pilot study was conducted to refine the questionnaire, which was then distributed in a national survey resulting in 237 useable responses. Data collected in this phase were analyzed using Partial Least Square based Structural Equation Modeling.

The results of quantitative analysis confirmed 13 hypotheses. All direct influences of the variables of digital divide on e-government system success were supported. The mediating effects of trust in e-government in the relationship between capability divide and e-government system success as well as in the relationship between innovativeness divide and e-government system success were supported, but was rejected in the relationship between access divide and e-government system success. Furthermore, the results supported the moderating effects of demographic variables of age, residential place, and education.

This research has both theoretical and practical contributions. The study contributes to the developments of literature on digital divide and e-government by providing a more comprehensive framework, and also to the implementation of e-government by local governments and the improvement of e-government Readiness Index of Indonesia.

This study aims to examine the conditions that help businesses develop confidence in their government regulators. Businesses are dependent upon governments and subject to their regulations. This study proposes that businesses and governments that confirm each other’s social face have the relationship that helps businesses become confident in their government regulators. It also uses the theory of cooperation and competition to identify when they confirm social face.

Data were collected in Shanghai, China, from government bodies and business organizations from diverse industries. One hundred forty-six pairs of government officials and business managers provided us data for our analysis.

Structural equation analysis suggests that cooperative, but not competitive or independent, goals provide the foundation for mutual confirmation of social face that in turn results in business confidence that the government is competent, caring and regulates effectively.

These findings were interpreted as reaffirming the value of relationships for collaboration between business and government and the usefulness of the concepts of social face and goal interdependence for understanding how to develop high-quality business–government relationships in China.

This study directly investigates social face among Chinese people and explores its impact on inter-organizational government–business relationships. This study uses social face and goal interdependence to understand when business and regulators develop relationships that promote effective regulation.

The purpose of this paper is to design a model in order that government hears citizen voices and welcomes people’s suggestions to improve its performance, it may be regarded as Management By People’s Suggestions.

After designing a conceptual model, collected data through the responses of 451 questionnaires from nine areas of Iran Territory Development Plan were analyzed using the structural equation model and an ANOVA.

The results indicate three directions are initiatives for the action of using citizens’ opinions to improve government performance. The directions are as follows: the direction of government strategies moving toward citizens’ needs; the direction of developing a seamless, integrated, coordinated, relationship between citizens and authorities; and the direction of centralizing citizens’ suggestions and criticisms.

This study suggests an approach using citizen feedback to improve government performance in Iran where it appears to be signs of a gap between people and government.

This paper reveals that, before any effort for citizen relationship management, investigations into effective directions which affect citizen–government relationship seems essential.

This study aims to investigate how and why corporate social responsibility (CSR) among domestic firms in emerging countries is affected by foreign competition.

The paper combines the resource-based view with the institution-based view to explain how different levels of firm–government relationships prompt firms to enact CSR when facing foreign competition. First, this paper examines how domestic firms engage in CSR in the presence of foreign competition, followed by the consideration of how different firm–government relationships affect CSR strategies for firms faced with foreign competition. Using a database of 1,665 publicly listed Chinese firms between 2011 and 2017, this paper tests four hypotheses regarding CSR behaviors, foreign competition and firm–government relationships, and the findings of this paper generally support all four hypotheses.

This study contributes to the literature by demonstrating that domestic firms in China respond to foreign competition by increased engagement in CSR, and this positive relationship is heterogeneous among different firm–government relationships. CSR is attenuated by state ownership but enhanced by high industry competition and high regional marketization.

The findings of this research have implications for managers regarding the integration of internal and external resources to enhance CSR as a nonmarket strategy to help maintain firms’ competitive advantages. For the government, policymakers should establish and maintain a fair and market-oriented environment that encourages firms to increase CSR engagement.

The paper contributes to the literature exploring the mechanisms that motivate firms’ pursuit of CSR as a nonmarket strategy under the impact of intensified foreign competition.

The purpose of this paper is to understand the role of public relations, conceptualized as a strategic management function, in foreign policy making, and implementation. This research study emphasizes the relational perspective and seeks to examine its applicability to the practice of public relations in foreign policy settings.

This qualitative research study was based on in-depth interviews with nine individuals who were in charge of public relations aspects of a particular foreign policy issue in Latvian government institutions. The examined foreign policy issue was development cooperation.

The research findings revealed that public relations contributed to the strategic management of the foreign policy process to a certain extent. Public relations built and cultivated relationships, researched and scanned environments, built communities around a foreign policy issue, facilitated dialogic encounters and socialized foreign policies. However, the public relations function was not involved in the entire strategic management process: analysis, planning, implementation, and evaluation. Although the relational perspective may be applicable to foreign policy settings and relationships that are cultivated by public relations practitioners in these settings bring outcomes on three different levels – national, organizational, and personal – this study found that public relations is not the only function that deals with relationships between an organization and its key publics.

This research study investigated two areas that are little explored in the public relations research literature: the strategic management role of public relations in government institutions and public relations contributions to policy, especially foreign, making.

The purpose of this paper is to address the issues of how business people perceive the business environment, how government policies impact the environment and how the environment impacts the establishment processes and position development of new firms in the Eritrean market. The process is discussed by keeping a strict focus on the main actors and the activities they carried out, as well as how the available resources are utilized and exchanged in the market.

Drawing on the establishment process model developed from the network approach, case studies based on interviews and focus group discussions have been used to shed light on the extent to how government policies and the environment impacts the establishment processes and position development in the Eritrean market.

An important conclusion of this paper is that the main obstacle for business establishment is the hostile attitude of the government to the private sector. Another significant obstacle for building a successful position in the market is the state‐owned command economy network of relationships. An additional crucial hindrance is the non‐existence of a market economy network of relationships that can provide firms in the private sector with the resources they need to perform their operations.

All firms in this paper have demonstrated that the main obstacle for establishment is the hostile attitude of the government to the private sector. Another obstacle is the state‐owned command economy network of relationships, which hinders firms from building a successful position in the market. An additional crucial hindrance is the non‐existence of a market economy network of relationships that can provide firms in the private sector with the resources they need to perform their operations. Since the paper is based on case studies and focus group discussions, conducting a similar study on a representative sample of firms selected from a larger population will be very useful.

This paper makes a unique contribution by focusing on the establishment process in a market, which is regulated, controlled and owned by the one party government. The other unique contribution is that a firm has to identify the secrets of business success and to follow the same strategy.