Search results
1 – 10 of over 3000Although municipal enterprise funds provide several advantages to cities in the provision of goods and services, little is known about how these municipally operated businesses…
Abstract
Although municipal enterprise funds provide several advantages to cities in the provision of goods and services, little is known about how these municipally operated businesses affect other aspects of the fiscal management practices of the cities which use them. This is particularly true of non-utility enterprises. This study uses the concept of net revenue transfers to examine how five commonly used non-utility enterprises impact the tax, expenditure, and revenue generation practices of cities. The results provide a new perspective and counter some commonly held views about non-utility enterprises.
– The study seeks to add to the understanding of the diffusion and decline of environmental reporting practices.
Abstract
Purpose
The study seeks to add to the understanding of the diffusion and decline of environmental reporting practices.
Design/methodology/approach
Semi-structured interviews and municipal water utility publications are analysed to identify factors which have influenced the diffusion and subsequent decline of environmental reporting practices within the Finnish water sector.
Findings
The findings suggest a dynamic view of the diffusion and decline of environmental reporting, showing that a variety of forces operated jointly over time. The initial swift diffusion may be mostly explained from the perspectives of fad and fashion, whereas the subsequent gradual decline of such reporting appears to have been driven mainly by internal organizational factors and a lack of outside pressure.
Research limitations/implications
The paper relies on a qualitative dataset, implying that extensive care is needed when seeking to generalise or apply the findings to different contexts or organizational fields.
Practical implications
The findings presented here should prove interesting for public sector managers, who are considering how, if at all, their organization should engage in social and environmental reporting.
Originality/value
The paper provides new insights into public sector sustainability reporting and presents reasons for its decline. In addition, the analysis illustrates the applicability of Abrahamson's typology of innovation diffusion to the study of social and environmental reporting practices.
Details
Keywords
Philip R. Walsh and Olalekan Ajibade
This paper aims to examine empirically if the encouragement by government policy of merger and acquisition activity involving municipal and provincially owned electricity…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to examine empirically if the encouragement by government policy of merger and acquisition activity involving municipal and provincially owned electricity distribution utilities (LDCs) in the Province of Ontario has had positive effects in terms of value creation, operating performance and economies of scale.
Design/methodology/approach
It was anticipated that with LDC consolidation, there will be increased operational efficiency and improvement in the cost-effectiveness of the merged electrical utility. Using matched pairs dependent t-testing and Wilcoxon signed-rank testing, the authors compared data for three years before and after the merger or acquisition of 16 municipal utilities (616 total observations) to determine if there were any statistically significant changes (positive or negative) in measures of financial, operational and service efficiency.
Findings
The findings indicate statistically significant increases in debt as a percentage of shareholder equity in post-merger/acquisition utilities and consequently leveraged higher returns on equity. However, there were no statistically significant changes in financial, operational or service efficiency measures (with the exception of decreased efficiency in telephone response).
Research limitations/implications
A total of 16 mergers or acquisitions were reviewed involving 32 of 79 LDCs, with the research implications pointing to a need for existing policy to be reviewed to determine whether a more detailed examination is required by the provincial energy regulator, including a closer examination of managerial motives, before approving mergers between municipal electricity distributors. This research involves only a quantitative approach and further research would examine these transactions using qualitative measures for a deeper examination as to managerial motives.
Practical implications
The results suggest that the mergers or acquisitions to date have served only to increase shareholder risk without improvement in other financial, operational or service efficiencies, a contradiction to the rationale behind the Province’s merger policy.
Social implications
The consolidation policy for Ontario LDCs has not resulted in any statistically significant improvement in electricity rates or service for consumers.
Originality/value
This paper is the first examination of the effects of Ontario’s LDC consolidation policy in terms of specific financial, operational and service efficiency measures.
Details
Keywords
Despite recent advances, neither organizational studies nor the scholarship on economic resilience has systematically addressed how the ecologies of organizations that populate…
Abstract
Despite recent advances, neither organizational studies nor the scholarship on economic resilience has systematically addressed how the ecologies of organizations that populate local economies can serve as infrastructures for responding proactively to economic shocks. Using county-level data, this study analyzes relationships between the prevalence of organizational alternatives to shareholder value-oriented (SVO) corporations within a particular locality and its unemployment levels during and after the Great Recession. The results support the hypothesis that the presence of such alternative organizations can enhance the capacities of local economies to resist and recover from recession shocks. Cooperative, municipal, and community-based enterprises, research universities, and nonprofits more generally were associated with greater resistance to the recession shock and stronger recoveries – specifically, lower surges in unemployment rates from 2007 to 2010 and greater reductions in unemployment rates from 2010 to 2016. By contrast, SVO corporations were associated with greater surges in unemployment and perhaps weaker recoveries. Providing a proof of concept, this study opens up new lines of inquiry for organizational studies by linking organizational ecologies to the promotion of collective efficacy and a more broadly shared prosperity in economic life.
Details
Keywords
Roberto Martin N. Galang, Rouselle F. Lavado, George O. White III and Jamil Paolo S. Francisco
The purpose of this study is to answer the research question: How do cooperative organizations perform when created by government fiat in an emerging market? Through the use of…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to answer the research question: How do cooperative organizations perform when created by government fiat in an emerging market? Through the use of institutional and agency theory, this paper presents a comparative analysis of the efficiency of the cooperative form of organization and investor-owned firms-investigating how the social–political structures in a community affect the efficiency of cooperatives vis-à-vis investor-owned firms. This paper also attempts to offer a better understanding of how government quality and organizational size influence performance outcomes between different organizational forms specifically in the Philippines.
Design Methodology Approach
The empirical analysis of this study was conducted among electric distribution utilities in the Philippines. Firm-level data was generated for 133 distributors, consisting of 119 electric cooperatives and 14 investor-owned companies. Panel data regressions were ran to test all hypotheses.
Findings
Cooperative organizations operate at a less efficient rate than investor-owned firms in the Philippines, even when controlling for firm-specific factors such as size, customer density and profitability. In addition, the efficiency of these cooperative organizations is more strongly influenced by the quality of the local government than investor-owned firms.
Originality Value
Positive externalities generated by the propagation of cooperatives on local communities may be based primarily on our understanding of how cooperatives have functioned largely in western contexts. Within the context of Southeast Asia, where national socio-political structures may be more dysfunctional, this paper observes that there is an equivalent negative externality caused by the tendency of cooperatives to replicate the political mismanagement of the community around it.
Details
Keywords
Arlene K. Wong and Peter H. Gleick
Provides a summary of recycled water use in California, illustrating the evolution of its application from individual projects for nearby users, to city‐wide and district…
Abstract
Provides a summary of recycled water use in California, illustrating the evolution of its application from individual projects for nearby users, to city‐wide and district programs. Presents three detailed case studies of recent water recycling projects: the West Basin Water Recycling project in Los Angeles County, the South Bay Water Recycling project in Santa Clara County, and several projects in Marin County. Barriers to recycled water projects include the cost, institutional barriers that separate water supply and wastewater functions, slow regulatory response in permitting, recognizing new technology and expended uses, and educating stakeholders. From the case studies, common elements to successful implementation demonstrate the importance of working with numerous stakeholders throughout the process and addressing their concerns, creating new institutional partnerships, educating stakeholders to bring actors together, market services, and engender support, acquiring financial assistance and providing incentives and, finally, relying on large volume users to support a more cost‐effective design.
Details
Keywords
Gianfranco Walsh, Keith Dinnie and Klaus‐Peter Wiedmann
To analyze whether perceived corporate reputation and customer satisfaction are directly associated with customer intention.
Abstract
Purpose
To analyze whether perceived corporate reputation and customer satisfaction are directly associated with customer intention.
Design/methodology/approach
Using structural equation modeling, the study is based on the responses to a written questionnaire of 462 customers of a large German utility.
Findings
A non‐significant and weak relationship was found between corporate reputation and switching intention. The postulated impact of customer satisfaction on customer switching intention was confirmed. Corporate reputation and customer satisfaction were found to be strongly correlated.
Research limitations/implications
The sample includes only one company's customers, so the findings may not be generalized to other industries. Future research in other service industries is called for.
Practical implications
The threat of customer defection in deregulated markets requires power supply companies to examine the marketing instruments and measures required to inhibit customer willingness to switch power suppliers. This study demonstrates the need to focus on monitoring and increasing customer satisfaction.
Originality/value
The importance of reputation and satisfaction will ultimately be assessed on the basis of their customer‐related consequences and their economic relevance to companies. The construct of corporate reputation has attracted significant attention among marketing scholars, although almost no work can be found that focuses on the most important stakeholder group, namely customers. This paper addresses this research gap. The identification of context‐specific reputation and satisfaction effects on customer defection offers both practical implications for marketers and contributes to the theoretical knowledge base of an increasingly important domain in services marketing.
Details
Keywords
Southern California Edison decided to plan for future uncertainties by writing a series of plausible scenarios and preparing flexible responses for each of them.
Mirko Cvetkovic, Alexander Pankov and Andrej Popovic
Two factors explain why the Serbian privatization experience deserves close attention from outside world. First, Serbia's starting conditions for privatization, with a historical…
Abstract
Two factors explain why the Serbian privatization experience deserves close attention from outside world. First, Serbia's starting conditions for privatization, with a historical tradition of workers’ management, strong trade unions, and an ambivalent initial attitude toward privatization, have as much in common with circumstances surrounding privatization in the developing countries as with those in the so-called economies in transition. Second, Serbia embarked on a resolute privatization path only in 2001, following more than 10 years of diverse privatization efforts in other post-socialist economies of the region. This makes Serbia a perfect case study of how a country can learn from the experience (both positive and negative) of other reformers.