Search results

The purpose of this paper is to examine three perspectives on autonomy: communication management or public relations autonomy, autonomy in management theory, and the autonomy of moral philosophy.

These arguments for autonomy are combined and studied to ascertain their impact on: the contribution of the communication function to strategic management of the organization, and, the enactment of an ethics counselor role by public relations. This research examines autonomy in communication at two global organizations through 43 interviews, observation, and document analysis. Factors influencing and contributing to autonomy are discussed.

Autonomy was found to be necessary for optimal contribution to strategic management and acting as ethical counsel in the public relations function. In both ways, autonomy contributes to the stature of the communication function within an organization and the development of public relations as a profession. Autonomy should be high on the research agenda of public relations scholars and a primary goal of communication professionals.

Communication managers should work for autonomy, inclusion in the strategic management team, and a rational approach to problem solving.

This research provides important theoretical value and enormous implications for communication professionals. Many conclusions about autonomy can be drawn from this conceptual and empirical research. Using systems and excellence theory as a framework, then building on that basis with empirical research in two world‐wide organizations, the research takes a novel approach in applying and studying the autonomy concept from moral philosophy in modern business. Data show that autonomy is necessary for excellence in communication, defending against encroachment, inclusion in strategic management, using empowering or collaborative management, and enacting the role of ethics counselor. These important implications for communication management have the potential to make business more ethically and socially responsible and to enhance the overall value of the communication function within organizations.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between structural arrangements of public agencies of Pakistan and their autonomy.

Data were collected through a questionnaire using the key informant approach from 70 public agencies of Pakistan. Hypotheses were drawn from the structural instrumental perspective to examine the relation between structure and autonomy. In order to test the hypotheses, multivariate regression analysis was performed on the data.

The research highlights that out of the three major structural dimensions, horizontal specialization, vertical specialization and governing board, only governing board is seen to affect the human resource management dimension of autonomy while vertical specialization is related to financial management autonomy. None of the three hypotheses were completely supported. The divergence of the results from the structural instrumental perspective points to other factors related to agencies including administrative culture and context of state that matter in delegation of autonomy to the agencies by the government.

This paper contributes to an on-going debate on globalization of public management reforms with emphasis on structural instrumental explanation of the agencification in developing countries.

In recent times, employers are routinely advertising for position candidates with the capability to work with little or no supervision at all. This is probably because, as businesses strive to globalize operations, supervision has become both complex and expensive. While the general interest in employees with considerable levels of work autonomy may be a strategic one, particularly for banks, it is important to determine the impact of work autonomy on other critical success factors such as employee commitment to change management, innovativeness and quality supervisor-subordinate relationship. This study aims to examine the relationship between these variables by exploring the mediation effect of work autonomy on the relationship between employee innovativeness, quality of supervisor-subordination collaboration and employee commitment to change management in the banking sector of Ghana.

The study used quantitative empirical strategies involving the distribution of questionnaires to a randomly selected sample of 400 employees of selected banks in Ghana. Data, so collected, were analysed using the PLS-SEM Software.

Results of the study revealed significant relationships between the quality of supervisor-subordinate collaboration, innovativeness and commitment to change. The findings further established work autonomy as an explanatory variable between the three employee behaviours – innovativeness, quality of supervisor-subordinate connection and commitment to change.

The novelty of this study lies in the interplay of quality employee relations, innovative employee behaviour and commitment to change processes as refereed by work autonomy to promote effective change management activities in Ghanaian banks. The outcome of the study led to the development of a theoretical model for organizational change management.

This study aims to examine the relationship between transformational leadership, organizational citizenship behaviour (OCB), job autonomy and supportive management with job autonomy and supportive management as mediating variables.

Primary data was collected through a survey of employees from business organizations in India. Data from 422 valid responses were analysed using structural equation modelling. Confirmatory factor analysis was run for assessment of the measurement model. Then the mediation effects of job autonomy and supportive management were tested for the hypothesized model.

Findings of the analyses indicate that transformational leadership directly and positively influences OCB, job autonomy and supportive management. Job autonomy and supportive management directly and positively influence OCB and mediate the relationship between transformational leadership and OCB partially.

Contribution of the study comes from advancement of literature by supporting the mediating effects of job autonomy and supportive management in the relationship between transformational leadership and OCB. Thus, the study provides a basis for the mechanism of how transformational leadership is related to OCB.

The chapter furnishes empirical evidence about the extent and profiles of autonomy of EU agencies, the modalities whereby they are steered and controlled, and the interactions they have in EU policy networks. It thus provides the bases for a more complete picture of the EU multi-level administration.

The research is a survey-based design. A questionnaire was administered between July 2009 and April 2010 to 30 EU agencies included in the study population. The questionnaire was sent to the executive director of all the agencies included in the study. Questions were closed-ended, either in the form of multiple choices – with one answer or with check-all-that-apply and an option for ‘other’ to be filled – or in scale format. The resulting data set included ratio, interval, ordinal, and nominal scales. The reference model employed for the investigation relies on the analytical model developed within the framework of the research project COST Action IS0651 CRIPO (Comparative Research into Current Trends in Public Sector Organization – see also ‘Acknowledgements’) for the study of public agencies in Europe (Verhoest, Van Thiel, Bouckaert, & Lægreid, 2012).

EU agencies display a rather low level of managerial, especially financial, autonomy; conversely, they enjoy relatively high policy autonomy. As to the way in which multiple ‘parent’ administration steer EU agencies, it emerges a composite picture, in which the crossroads of steering and control by the parent administrations and accountability by the agency lies in the executive director. In terms of interactions within policy networks, EU agencies interact in a significant way with the European Commission, with national-level agencies in the pertinent policy field, and with specific technical bodies where they are part of the configuration of the policy sector, whilst interactions with national ministries as well as with other EU agencies are rare. No single model can capture in full the overall features of EU agencies, although the ‘community level institution’ model seems to capture a number of the profiles of these agencies.

Both the literature on EU multi-level administration and research agendas in public management can benefit from inclusion of – and in-depth empirical knowledge about – EU agencies. The chapter provides important empirical evidence to these purposes.

EU agencies are actors in European public policy-making, albeit to a varied extent depending on the sector. The extent of autonomy and the way in which they are held to account are crucial aspects for an enhanced understanding of their influence on European public policy-making, as is their location in European policy networks.

Research presented in this chapter is the first systematic empirical investigation of EU agencies encompassing networking, steering and control and autonomy of EU agencies, based on primary data.

The purpose of this paper is to trace the development of school autonomy and accountability and related multiple changes and impacts in key areas of school education in Hong Kong since implementing school-based management (SBM) from 1990s.

To explore the evolution and the uniqueness of autonomy and accountability in the Hong Kong school system, the paper begins with an historical account, followed by an evaluation of the effects of SBM as shown in policy documents, local research, international reviews and illustrative findings from a case study. The local and international implications of SBM for research and practice are then discussed.

This paper shows the links between school autonomy and accountability by exploring the potential effects of both of these factors on educational management and student achievement, which are increasingly emphasised in educational policies. The investigation shows that the assumed links and effects are not always consistent or empirically supported. The positive effects that school autonomy has on school governance and management, teachers’ work, school-based curriculums and student learning are all significant when there is also strong leadership, comprehensive continuous professional development and a positive, collaborative school climate. These key elements work alongside school autonomy to facilitate positive change.

School autonomy and accountability should be viewed as necessary, but not sufficient, conditions for school improvement and development. Further characterisation of the processes happening in schools is needed to explore the different realisations of school autonomy and accountability.

This investigation of school autonomy and accountability in Hong Kong provides the international audience with a deeper understanding of the dynamics involved in the development of SBM.

The high turnover rate of knowledge workers presents a challenge to both organizational and personal knowledge management. Although personal knowledge management plays an important role in organizational knowledge management, empirical research on the practices for its application is underdeveloped. This study aims to examine the role of idiosyncratic job-design practices (i.e. job definition, job autonomy, innovation as a job requirement and lifelong learning orientation) in cultivating personal knowledge management among knowledge workers in organizations, to increase their productivity and safeguard the organization against knowledge loss arising from knowledge workers’ interfirm mobility.

Data were collected from 221 knowledge workers pursuing various knowledge-intensive jobs through a questionnaire survey and were analysed using partial least squares modelling.

The results demonstrated that three job-design practices (job definition, innovation as a job requirement and lifelong learning orientation) have a positive impact on personal knowledge management among knowledge workers and thus improve their productivity. However, job autonomy can affect personal knowledge management negatively.

The findings are confined to a specific context and should be replicated across different contexts for better generalizability in future research.

Organizational managers should pay attention to (re)designing knowledge-intensive jobs to cultivate personal knowledge management by clearly outlining job responsibilities, offering opportunities to add relevant job activities and drop irrelevant ones, and making innovation and lifelong learning a formal job requirement. In addition, job autonomy should be judiciously provided along with sufficient social and network support to avoid lost opportunities in knowledge creation and sharing, and should be linked to job responsibilities and performance appraisals to avoid negative effects.

The high turnover rate of knowledge workers presents a challenge to both organizational and personal knowledge management. This study contributes to the literature by addressing the research gap in two aspects. Firstly, based on Drucker’s theory, this study identifies four idiosyncratic job-design practices (job definition, job autonomy, innovation as a job requirement and lifelong learning orientation) that reflect the distinctive characteristics of knowledge-intensive work. Secondly, this study examines whether and how these practices can cultivate personal knowledge management among knowledge workers, which can support their productivity.

Middle managers’ intrapreneurial actions can be a powerful source of organizational adaptation and strategic renewal. Better understanding what drives such intrapreneurial actions is important, yet requires data, which allows testing directional claims. For example, whereas autonomy and supportive leadership might be antecedents to such intrapreneurial behavior, it equally seems possible that firms delegate more autonomy to individuals behaving entrepreneurially (rather than being “lazy”) or that senior managers are more inclined to show support for individuals engaging in entrepreneurial action. Lagged or longitudinal survey evidence to test whether autonomy and leadership support are antecedents of intrapreneurship or consequences, is – like for many other questions in research on strategic responsiveness – hard and expensive to collect. Vignette experiments (also called factorial surveys or conjoint studies) may be a way out – especially when combined with cross-sectional evidence. The present chapter illustrates this approach by studying the relations among autonomy, supportive leadership, and intrapreneurship by means of a vignette experiment and a cross-sectional field survey. The findings suggest that autonomy and supportive leadership are indeed antecedents to intrapreneurial behavior and illustrate the value of vignette experiments for research on strategic responsiveness.

Although policy makers strengthen the necessity of “deregulation”, discussions about deregulation vs regulation in Europe still seem to be characterized by a lack of sophistication and require a more differentiated picture of specific forms of deregulation. As a consequence, the analysis of new educational governance approaches should consider the local actor's interpretation of new roles and new responsibilities. Relating actions and reactions of school leaders to their formal environment should lead to more contextual patterns of responsiveness. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

The authors investigate, based on a survey among Cypriot school leaders, whether school autonomy needs deregulation, or regulation towards autonomy, respectively. At the time of research the school system of Cyprus could be characterized as a “centralized” system and hence represented a suitable field of study. Using a factor model followed by a cluster analysis the paper explores the school leaders’ profiles of operative and perceived autonomy in different fields of governance issues and identify different types of leadership.

The authors find that the autonomy school leaders experience is not necessarily related to a “defined” degree of autonomy which is prescribed by educational law and driven by concepts of new public management. Their “perceived” autonomy is also due to factors which can be located at a rather individual level.

The findings provide insight into principals’ motives to adopt certain styles of leading schools, quite independently from new measures of educational governance. The authors conclude that greater emphasis on systematic support programmes may prepare school principals for gains of autonomy as well as for potential sources of conflict.

Earlier research has investigated project autonomy only in the context of one parent organization, and not sufficiently in complex stakeholder environments. This paper aims to examine project autonomy and its formation in a complex stakeholder environment. The purpose is to increase understanding on project autonomy, its formation, enablers, and barriers in a complex stakeholder environment, particularly in service development networks.

An embedded case study strategy of 11 service development projects are employed within the same non‐profit parent organization, each with their unique, complex stakeholder networks. Data were collected through interviews with key informants both in the projects and their parent organization and content analyzed.

The results reveal that project autonomy appears in constant interplay with the surrounding stakeholder environment. Four types of context‐dependent autonomy are characterized in the projects: isolated, privileged, networked, and embedded. How the parent organization enables and constrains autonomy is also reported by moderating the level of attention given to projects more or less deliberately.

The alleged connection between project autonomy and success needs to be questioned in complex stakeholder environments. Further research is suggested on the dynamics of project autonomy throughout the project lifecycle, and the effects of contingency factors such as project type. As the embedded single‐case strategy has its limitations for generalizability, further research should test and verify the findings in other contexts.

Project manager and owner capabilities should be aligned with the type and degree of project autonomy.

The results contribute to the literature on project autonomy by drawing attention to the complexity of a project's stakeholder environment and by lending empirical support to recent conceptual research on context‐bound project strategies.