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1 – 10 of over 8000Bryane Michael and Stephen Mendes
Macedonian municipalities should pass anti‐corruption ordinances in order to reduce corruption. The purpose of this paper is to review the legal issues involved in drafting such…
Abstract
Purpose
Macedonian municipalities should pass anti‐corruption ordinances in order to reduce corruption. The purpose of this paper is to review the legal issues involved in drafting such ordinances and provide legal advisors to local councils with the legal and economic analysis needed to tackle some of the more difficult and detailed questions.
Design/methodology/approach
The most important issue revolves around the creation of a model ordinance which Macedonian municipalities (or the Association of Units of Local Self‐Government of the Republic of Macedonia) could adopt in order to set‐up and run municipal‐level anti‐corruption agencies. The location of such agencies as well as their competencies (to monitor conflicts of interests, oversee asset declarations, and conduct corruption risk‐audits among others) are analysed. The paper also provides legal interpretations of Macedonian legislation and their likely impact on municipal council ordinance design in the area of anti‐corruption – providing the legal basis for positive administrative silence, the splitting of municipal procurement contracts, and (most controversially) qui tam rewards at the municipal level.
Findings
A brief regulatory impact analysis of the ordinance shows a gain of €162,900 in social welfare if such a programme were rolled‐out in Macedonia.
Originality/value
The present paper provides some of the legal analysis which previous papers lack.
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Street vendors are defined as the person who does not work in a certain sales place, goes to the place where the consumer is located and offers her goods for sale. In this…
Abstract
Street vendors are defined as the person who does not work in a certain sales place, goes to the place where the consumer is located and offers her goods for sale. In this chapter, the rights and regulations of street vendors are examined in terms of Municipality Law, Municipal Police Law and Misdemeanors Law. According to sub-clause (m) of Article 15 of the Municipality Law No. 5393, it is the duty of the municipality to prevent peddlers who sell without permission in order to develop and register the economy and trade in the town. According to the article 10 (c-5) of the Municipal Police Law, it is the duty of the municipal police to ban the peddlers who sell in the streets, parks and squares in violation of the legislation and health conditions. But during the pandemic, almost all street vendors such as bagel sellers, chestnut and corn sellers, water sellers and all kinds of peddlers suffered a great loss of income like other professions. Confiscating goods and looms is often not a solution; these people perform the same job again after a certain period of time. The solution is to register and include peddling and street vending, which are important elements of the informal economy, in the tax system.
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Pekka Valkama, Harald Torsteinsen and Pekka Kettunen
The study examines how introducing joint municipal arm's length bodies (ALBs) into municipal waste management has influenced the preconditions of democratic governance.
Abstract
Purpose
The study examines how introducing joint municipal arm's length bodies (ALBs) into municipal waste management has influenced the preconditions of democratic governance.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors describe and explain the democratic implications of joint municipal agencification by reviewing the perspectives of representative and participative democracy. Through this approach, the authors apply the exit–voice framework developed by Albert Hirschman to highlight the potential roles and rights of citizens. This research includes country case studies of Finland and Norway. The authors analyse and systematize Finnish and Norwegian waste and organizational policies by reviewing national regulatory documents, commentaries and guidance materials to identify the fundamental missions and institutional traditions of the alternative organizational forms of joint ALBs.
Findings
The study findings highlight that joint agencification has an adverse effect on the democratic governance of waste management policy and services even though these are public monopoly services. They also demonstrate that all joint municipal ALBs limit the classic elements of representative democracy in general, and that private-law ALBs limit residents' rights to influence and participate.
Originality/value
This study contributes to local public management studies by applying Hirschman's theory to comparative reviews of joint agencification and ALBs. It revealed the similarities and differences between the different organizational forms of joint ALBs applied in Finland and Norway. It also demonstrated how the democratic rights of residents depend on how municipalities collaborate.
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Social scientists have recently turned their attention to the important consequences of industrial districts or so-called agglomeration economies on economic growth and firm…
Abstract
Social scientists have recently turned their attention to the important consequences of industrial districts or so-called agglomeration economies on economic growth and firm performance. This paper explores an important but unanswered question involving agglomeration economies: does geographic location within an agglomeration affect firm performance? I assess this question by examining the effects of different geographic office locations (by zip code) on the failure rates of all corporate law firms located in Silicon Valley from 1969 to 1998. Empirical estimates reveal that Silicon Valley corporate law firms benefit from the increased volume of client referrals that comes from being near mutualistic firms that offer a different range of legal services, the lower labor costs and more specialized division of labor that come from being near a large joint supply of lawyers, and the increased business that comes from being near important clients (i.e. venture capital firms).
In addition, corporate law firms that locate in certain municipalities of Silicon Valley, including Palo Alto, San Jose, and Santa Clara, have significantly increased failure rates, even controlling for many firm-specific differences. Younger corporate law firms (under the age of 11 years) are helped disproportionately by being near important environmental resources and harmed disproportionately by being in certain perilous areas of Silicon Valley. All told, a law firm’s office location within Silicon Valley has significant consequences for its survival.
Panagiotis Kapotas and Efpraxia Aithra Maria
The purpose of this paper is to present, from a critical point of view, the current legal framework of livestock grazing in public forests in Greece, to present the implementation…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to present, from a critical point of view, the current legal framework of livestock grazing in public forests in Greece, to present the implementation problems that have arisen and to suggest possible solutions.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors are trying to combine and implement some of the rangeland ecology results as a tool to explain the legal status and the reform proposals.
Findings
Livestock grazing is a misunderstood activity when it occurs in forests. In fact, when livestock grazing is controlled and based on the capacity of a forest area, it has been proven that it does not degrade an ecosystem; on the contrary, it contributes to biodiversity and to the prevention of forest fires. The prohibition of grazing for a long period of time, along with the establishment of a legal framework by which the forestry service is required to abide, which does not provide for alternatives or compensatory measures to farmers, has resulted in the creation of extremely unpleasant conditions for farmers.
Originality/value
There are hardly any relevant studies in Greek and international literature specifically focused on the Greek legal status of livestock grazing. The scarce contributions on this topic have been investigated and are incorporated in the justification of the study.
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CSR in water utilities in Denmark faces various challenges in getting to the same level as in private organisations. The water utilities are newly privatised, hybrid organisations…
Abstract
Purpose
CSR in water utilities in Denmark faces various challenges in getting to the same level as in private organisations. The water utilities are newly privatised, hybrid organisations that are both professionally and politically driven. The purpose of this paper is an examination of the opportunities and barriers in CSR in these publicly owned enterprises (POEs). The research question is: why do the opportunities of CSR in POEs seem more beneficial than for normal private businesses, while the barriers seem to slow the progression? The opportunities lie in the closeness to and willingness of the political decision‐makers of the city. The barriers to CSR in POEs stem from the legal regulatory framework, which dictates efficiencies, price and cost reductions and limits the ethical investments of the POEs.
Design/methodology/approach
The methodology of the paper is a comparative study and analysis of the current legislative and organisational framework for the POEs compared to the contemporary CSR approaches of Matten and Moon, Wartick and Wood, and Mitchell et al.
Findings
The findings show that a schism seems to exist in CSR of hybrid organisations, which is hard to overcome.
Originality/value
The originality of the paper and its contribution to the CSR literature lies in its pointing out the issues in opportunities and barriers in CSR in public, hybrid organisations that need to be solved before CSR can be fully implemented in public service companies at the same level as in private businesses.
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Helena Santos Curto and Álvaro Dias
The purpose of this paper is to clarify the relationship between administrative reform in Portugal and the impacts on the dependence of local governments in the face of budgetary…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to clarify the relationship between administrative reform in Portugal and the impacts on the dependence of local governments in the face of budgetary resources of state and local municipal revenue collection, which is understood as a form, among others, participation civil society in local public policies.
Design/methodology/approach
The study opts for an exploratory analysis using the grounded theory approach, including the use of data relating to local government structures and partnerships with the private sector, based on the main lines of the public administration reform. The data were supplemented by documentary analysis, including legislative documents and papers in specialized area of administrative decentralization and civil society participation in local public policies.
Findings
The paper provides empirical insights about how the increased participation of civil society in local public policies is associated with less reliance on state budgets and a greater number of local managerial structures.
Research limitations/implications
Due to the chosen research approach, the results cannot be generalized. A comparative study between several countries could bring several interesting insights.
Social implications
The paper includes implications for economic and social development of new public policies in the context of administrative reforms.
Originality/value
This paper makes several theoretical and empirical contributions on this research field specially about local public manager's decisions for financial resources transfers within the active policy of sustainable local development.
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This chapter captures and summarises the public sector auditing practices of Swiss subnational and local governments. Following the federal structure of Switzerland and the…
Abstract
This chapter captures and summarises the public sector auditing practices of Swiss subnational and local governments. Following the federal structure of Switzerland and the constitutional principle of decentralisation, lower government levels independently self-elaborate their audit institutions and structures, which is why a large variety of public sector audit arrangements exists. Local government audit mainly varies between the subnational states/cantons regarding the allocation of the external audit function and the qualitative requirements underlying the constitution of the auditing bodies. Depending on the cantonal legislative framework, local government audit is performed by a body of direct-democratically elected lay-auditors, a professional audit firm, an own independent auditing office or in a shared arrangement involving multiple of these actors.
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The purpose of this study was to profile the current state of sustainable tourism indicators (STIs) in order to assess risks and draw attention to potential solutions.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study was to profile the current state of sustainable tourism indicators (STIs) in order to assess risks and draw attention to potential solutions.
Design/methodology/approach
A qualitative methodology and documentary analysis were used, and primary data were gathered about STIs from four publicly available regulatory documents.
Findings
The study findings indicate that one of the primary impediments to sustainable tourism development is a lack of supervision and control over the enforcement of existing laws and regulations. Existing systems with relevant laws and regulations contribute to the fact that the environment is unsustainably developed because of the absence of specific explanations relating to STIs. The study identifies some of the actions that could be taken to mitigate the negative impacts of conventional forms of tourism development.
Research limitations/implications
This article argues that policymakers should act quickly to audit and manage the environment and that they should involve non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and the tourism industry in this process. In addition, regulations should be revisited to include the necessity of being certified by international bodies for tourism enterprises and adopting European Union (EU) environmental standards.
Practical implications
The tourism industry must adopt a more responsible and participatory approach to economic growth in order to ensure sustainable tourism, learning from the global coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Further, the industry must collaborate with policymakers to develop mechanisms to protect and control the resources they consume for the sake of future generations.
Originality/value
Sustainable tourism development in which all aspects contribute to economic development, especially Small Island Developing States (SIDS), is of the utmost importance. No prior work seems to have been published that evaluates publicly available regulatory documents with reference to the current state of STIs in SIDS, especially in North Cyprus.
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