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1 – 10 of over 21000Bruce C. Skaggs and Kevin T. Leicht
The social organization of work has become more entrepreneurial and less bureaucratic over the past 20 years. How is this development consistent with managerial control over the…
Abstract
The social organization of work has become more entrepreneurial and less bureaucratic over the past 20 years. How is this development consistent with managerial control over the labor process? This paper develops a professional autonomy perspective to explain the acceptance of new management ideas in the United States, including the recent turn away from bureaucratic organizational forms. The focus on professional autonomy helps to create a theoretical link between past and current managerial practices, including the latest anti-bureaucratic phase that we label neoentrepreneurialism. We conclude by exploring future research implications of studying managerial practice from a professional autonomy perspective.
Edoardo Ongaro, Dario Barbieri, Nicola Bellé and Paolo Fedele
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…
Abstract
Purpose
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.
Methodology/approach
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).
Findings
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.
Research implications
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.
Practical/social implications
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.
Originality/value
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.
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Gustavo Hermínio Salati Marcondes de Moraes, Eduardo Eugênio Spers, Luciano Mendes and Hermes Moretti Ribeiro da Silva
The study aims to analyze the influence of managerial support, autonomy and reward perception on the innovative behavior of university professors.
Abstract
Purpose
The study aims to analyze the influence of managerial support, autonomy and reward perception on the innovative behavior of university professors.
Design/methodology/approach
Quantitative methodology based on partial least squares structural equation modeling. The sample obtained totaled 208 responses from professors at three public universities in the State of Sao Paulo, Brazil.
Findings
The results indicate that managerial support is a fundamental factor for developing an organizational environment that is more conducive to innovative behavior and corporate entrepreneurship. However, in educational institutions with a more focused entrepreneurial ecosystem, it was discovered that reward perception is not a fundamental factor for the innovative behavior of university professors.
Practical implications
From a practical perspective, academic institutions interested in stimulating corporate entrepreneurship should create opportunities for collaboration among professors to solve problems, encourage professors to expose their work beyond the university environment and improve the main indicators of management support and autonomy presented in this research.
Social implications
The study presents indicators and implications, which are of particular interest for university managers and public policy writers.
Originality/value
The study is demonstrably original. Through its unique analysis of the innovative behavior of university professors and the connections between variables in the university environment and its use of a robust modeling method in an emerging-economy context, the study furthers existing research by helping to understand why some firms are better than others at corporate entrepreneurship.
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Enrico Colla, Maria Eugenia Ruiz-Molina, Catherine Chastenet De Gery, Maryline Schultz, Martine Deparis and Laurence Lemmet
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of participative franchising on performance from the franchisee perspective. In particular, the paper analyses the impact of…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of participative franchising on performance from the franchisee perspective. In particular, the paper analyses the impact of the franchisee autonomy – in human resource management and marketing decisions – affective commitment to the network and network innovativeness on the franchisee relative performance.
Design/methodology/approach
A survey answered by 226 franchisees in France allowed to estimate a structural equations model through partial least squares regression analysis to test the hypothesised relations between autonomy, affective commitment, innovativeness and performance.
Findings
According to the authors’ findings, franchisee’s autonomy in commercial policies, mediated by to franchisor’s ability to innovate and acknowledge innovations stemming from the franchisees, and the affective commitment to the network, emerge as strong determinants of the franchisee’s performance.
Research limitations/implications
The results confirm the conclusions of other research, but extend and integrate them, providing evidence that the role of participative franchising should not be neglected.
Practical implications
The results obtained provide evidence about the importance of bidirectional communication instruments in the relations between franchisor and franchisee, and participation tools for the identification, recognition and support to the innovative successful practices developed by franchisees to be quickly implemented by other franchisees in the network.
Originality/value
This paper looks at franchisee autonomy, affective commitment and innovativeness as potential determinants of franchisee’s performance, being the latter an underexplored topic.
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Thibaut Bardon and Stefano Borzillo
The purpose of this paper is to address the question of how two seemingly opposite principles – managerial control and autonomy – simultaneously affect, positively and negatively…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to address the question of how two seemingly opposite principles – managerial control and autonomy – simultaneously affect, positively and negatively, managers’ motivation to develop together innovative practices in a community of practice (the Custoprog community).
Design/methodology/approach
A single-case study was conducted in the Custoprog community, during which 22 semi-directive interviews with Custoprog members were conducted over a period of eight months. Members are all EuroAirport middle managers of EuroAirport (a Western Europe international airport).
Findings
The findings highlight how Custoprog members experience the conflicting situation of enjoying some autonomy (granted by top management), while being subjected to some degree of managerial control. Our results focus on how these two opposite principles (control and autonomy) simultaneously (positively as well as negatively) affect the motivation of Custoprog members to develop innovative practices together.
Research limitations/implications
The study is limited by the scope of the sample. Further research conducted in multiple communities of practice (CoPs) may therefore be useful for comparability purposes, and to generalize our results.
Practical implications
We provide a set of practical recommendations to steer CoPs effectively, by achieving a delicate balance between control and autonomy.
Originality/value
Our investigation contributes to understanding the strategic benefits of using CoPs as an informal means of developing and diffusing customer-related innovative practices.
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Aisha Rizwan, Yaamina Salman and Shabana Naveed
This article aims to empirically investigate the influence of socio-cultural and political factors and actors on the perceived autonomy and control of state agencies in Pakistan…
Abstract
Purpose
This article aims to empirically investigate the influence of socio-cultural and political factors and actors on the perceived autonomy and control of state agencies in Pakistan. Taking an institutional perspective, which envisages a diverse course of agency reforms, owed to varied national cultures, historical paths and traditional mindsets, the authors argue that the institutional theory provides an explanation to the autonomy and control status of the agencies.
Design/methodology/approach
Data were collected from 39 senior public officials and governing board members in federal agencies by conducting in-depth semi-structured interviews. Thematic analysis was performed using NVivo-12 for data analysis.
Findings
The results disclose that the agencies operate within an overriding politico-administrative culture of intervention and supremacy of the central government. There is a close relationship between the political actors and actors' implementing agents, the bureaucrats. Although the disaggregated public agencies are created under the agency model, a culture of political influence and control still prevails within them. Among the socio-cultural factors, corruption is reported as a critical influencing factor for agency autonomy.
Research limitations/implications
The study emphasizes the need to adapt and modify agencification practices in developing countries based on the political, socio-cultural and administrative contextual factors and actors and the varying degrees of influence the practices exercise over the Government machinery.
Originality/value
This study unveils the implications of the new public management (NPM)-led agency model in Pakistan, which was primarily adopted as a part of the structural adjustment program (SAP) under loan conditionality from international donor agencies and explores the indigenous doctrines that govern agencies functioning under ministries.
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Abiha Zahra and Muhammad Zafar Iqbal Jadoon
The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between structural arrangements of public agencies of Pakistan and their autonomy.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between structural arrangements of public agencies of Pakistan and their autonomy.
Design/methodology/approach
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.
Findings
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.
Originality/value
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.
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Over the last decades, the accounting and control literature has featured much studying of and debate about the role and designing of incentives. Over the last year or so, the…
Abstract
Over the last decades, the accounting and control literature has featured much studying of and debate about the role and designing of incentives. Over the last year or so, the debate over incentives and bonuses has become a much more public one, as illustrated by the current public furor over bankers' bonuses and frequent calls to limit them and/or tax them more heavily. The public nature of the debate is new, but the emotional intensity is not; an intense emotionality has often characterized discussions of these subjects in print, as recently illustrated by a controversy between supporters and opponents of goal setting published in Academy of Management Perspectives.
This chapter tries to structure the debate by defining – and clarifying the interactions between – key components of the debate. I then review some – by no means all – of the evidence available in three streams of research: goal setting, self-determination theory, and economics. A surprisingly large number of commonalities emerge from this review. I then revisit in light of this review two accountability models I had introduced at a previous conference as well a forthcoming field study of the sophisticated approach developed by a successful multinational corporation.
Health systems function in an ecosystem that is turbulent and competitive because of demographic, economic, political, technological and lifestyle changes and sociopolitical…
Abstract
Purpose
Health systems function in an ecosystem that is turbulent and competitive because of demographic, economic, political, technological and lifestyle changes and sociopolitical influences, requiring hospitals to adopt comprehensive business strategies. Failure to do so may result in duplication, waste and deficits. This original article uses the prism of agency theory to examine differences in approach at two levels of hospital management and the consequent problems in the incorporation of necessary changes. Agency theory posits an inherent conflict of interest in organizations, including health organizations: the managers (agents) always aim to maximize their profit or personal interest instead of that of the owner or organization (principal), potentially causing difficulty in managing the organization. The aim is to generate recommendations for policymakers.
Design/methodology/approach
The study is based on 30 semi-structured, in-depth interviews with key figures in the health system and on two levels of hospital management: senior managers and heads of selected departments. The analysis used a categorical qualitative methodology.
Findings
The main findings are five key themes: views of business behavior, asymmetry of interests, asymmetry of information, transparency and cooperation between various levels of management and ambivalence toward business in hospitals. The two levels of management are clearly divided in terms of interests, information and activity, leading to difficulty in cooperation, efficiency and achievement of organizational goals.
Originality/value
Using agency theory, this study provides a systemic and organizational view of hospitals' management and environmental adaptation. Understanding the processes and increasing cooperation at various managerial levels can help make the system more efficient and ensure its survival in a dynamic market.
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Andrew Munthopa Lipunga, Betchani M.H. Tchereni and Rhoda Cythia Bakuwa
The purpose of this paper is to explore the nature of governance reforms also called conceptual innovation for public hospitals in Malawi.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore the nature of governance reforms also called conceptual innovation for public hospitals in Malawi.
Design/methodology/approach
It focuses on the reforms for central and district hospitals. It uses semi-structured interviews to collect data and thematic approach to analyse it.
Findings
The results show that the reforms for central hospitals are structurally well characterised as aimed at corporatisation though they are termed as automatisation. The terminological seems not to pose any harm on the direction of the reforms due to the thorough structural characterisation. On the other hand, reforms for district hospitals are vague as such implementation is retrogressive, in that, instead of progressively moving the hospitals towards greater autonomy the opposite is happening.
Originality/value
The paper highlights the significance of characterisation of the intended outcome on the direction of the reforms and proposes a framework to guide conceptual innovation for public hospitals in a devolution-mediated environment.
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