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1 – 10 of 37Olayinka Moses, Dimu Ehalaiye, Matthew Sorola and Philippe Lassou
The purpose of this study is to examine the Nigerian Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative’s (NEITI) ineffectiveness in delivering public accountability to Nigerian…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to examine the Nigerian Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative’s (NEITI) ineffectiveness in delivering public accountability to Nigerian citizens. Although this failure is recognised in prior literature, the authors contend that NEITI’s role is obscured by one-sided links to external factors.
Design/methodology/approach
The conceptual framework presented in this study is built around Dillard and Vinnari’s (2019) distinction between different accountability systems and Brown and Dillard’s (2020) complimentary insights on the technologies of hubris and humility. The analytical framework draws from Grant and Keohane’s (2005) modes of accountability, which the authors use to articulate conflicting accountability demands (to-whom and for-what) of NEITI’s operating relationships. Combined, the authors analyse official documents, media, reports and interview responses from members of NEITI’s National Stakeholders Working Group.
Findings
This study surfaces a variety of intersecting interests across NEITI’s operational relationships. Some of these interests are mutually beneficial like that of Donors and the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative. Others run counter to each other, such as NEITI’s relationship to the Presidency which illustrates a key source of NEITI’s ineffectiveness. In discussing these interests, the authors articulate their connection to NEITI’s design as an accountability system and its embedded limitations.
Originality/value
The authors provide incremental understanding of prior insight regarding NEITI’s ineffectiveness by drawing attention to its fundamental design as an accountability system and its failure to deliver public accountability. To illuminate these failures, the authors also map NEITI’s competing accountability demands – the nexus of accountability – to demonstrate the complex socio-political reality within which NEITI is expected to operate. The authors posit that NEITI’s ineffectiveness has as much to do with NEITI itself, as it does with external factors like the quality of information disclosed and the unique Nigerian context.
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Philippe Jacques Codjo Lassou, Matthew Sorola, Daniela Senkl, Sarah George Lauwo and Chelsea Masse
This paper aims to investigate the prevalence of corruption in Ghana to understand how and why it has turned public procurement into a mere money-making scheme instead of a means…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to investigate the prevalence of corruption in Ghana to understand how and why it has turned public procurement into a mere money-making scheme instead of a means to provide needed public goods and services.
Design/methodology/approach
The study focuses on Ghana as a case study and mobilizes the monetization of politics lenses. Data are collected via interviews with key officials across the procurement sector (including the government, donors and civil society), documents, documentaries and news articles.
Findings
The findings suggest that the increasing costs of elections and political financing coupled with the costs of vote-buying, which has become informally institutionalized, intensify corruption practices and, consequently, turns public procurement into a mere source of cash for political ends. Political appointments and legalized loopholes facilitate this by helping to nullify the safeguard accounting and other control institutions are designed to provide. Likewise, enduring poverty and rising inequality “force” citizens into a vote-buying culture which distorts democratic premises that may drive out unscrupulous politicians; thus, perpetuating capture schemes. Civil society's efforts to remedy these have had little success, and corruption and inequality remain rife.
Practical implications
The main practical implication of the study lies in the need for a gradual demonetization of elections, and the consideration of the fundamental function of public procurement as a policy instrument embedded in economic, social, cultural and environmental plans. Additionally, given the connectedness of the various corruption issues raised, a comprehensive system-based approach in dealing with them would be more effective than a piecemeal approach targeting each issue/problem in isolation.
Originality/value
While extant literature has examined the issue of endemic corruption in developing countries using state capture, few have attempted to explain why it remains enduring, particularly in public procurement. This study, therefore, contributes to the literature on corruption and state capture theoretically and empirically by drawing on monetization of politics from political science to explain why corruption and state capture endure in certain contexts (with Ghana as an illustrative example) which reduce public procurement to a cash-milking scheme.
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Gracia Rubio Martín, Conrado M. Miguel García, Francisco José González Sánchez and Álvaro Féliz Navarrete
The aim of this work is to explain the final negotiated prices for some of the most famous transfers of football players over the last twelve years (2007–2018).
Abstract
Purpose
The aim of this work is to explain the final negotiated prices for some of the most famous transfers of football players over the last twelve years (2007–2018).
Design/methodology/approach
The article analyses different values for forwards taken from the sports website Transfermarkt, developing a statistical model based on personal, performance, risk, environmental and popularity variables. From those values, the article finds an explanation for the final prices paid for 20 superstar players based on a combination of real option valuations, incorporating the players' life cycles and game theory.
Findings
The authors find that in a large percentage (70%) of the analysed cases, the price paid was higher than the intrinsic market value resulting from Transfermarkt, implying the existence of monopolistic rents, paid as “growth options” on prices from different negotiating conditions. On occasions, the final prices also exceed the value of the growth option, calculated under neutral bargaining conditions, highlighting the lack of economic viability of important transfers, leading to financial difficulties for the clubs involved.
Originality/value
The algorithm provides more flexibility and realism than previous proposals, based on the life cycle of football players, introducing the uncertainty and volatility of projections through Monte Carlo simulation, the capacity of clubs to bargain a price at any point of the contract and finally, the buyer's ability to transfer the player if his subsequent performance is not as expected.
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Udoka Okonta, Amin Hosseinian-Far and Dilshad Sarwar
With the rise in demand and adoption of smart city initiatives, it is imperative to plan the railway infrastructure, as it will have a huge positive impact if adequately…
Abstract
Purpose
With the rise in demand and adoption of smart city initiatives, it is imperative to plan the railway infrastructure, as it will have a huge positive impact if adequately integrated into the planning process. Given the complexities involved, a whole systems thinking framework provides a useful platform for rail transport planners.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper proposes a simple, adoptable framework utilising systems thinking concepts and techniques taking into cognisance the key stakeholders. Milton Keynes in the United Kingdom is the adopted case study.
Findings
Selected systems thinking tools and techniques are adopted to develop a framework for mapping stakeholders and attributes when developing sustainable rail transport systems, taking note of their core functionalities and the complex systems wherein they exist.
Practical implications
The desire to build future (smart) cities is to effectively match infrastructural resources with a rapidly growing population, and the railway sector can play a strategic role in building a much more competitive low-carbon-emission transport system, which is a driving force for sustainable development.
Social implications
The urban rail service has become vital to urban development as railway stations serve as hubs for sustainable mobility to meet local requirements. Moreover, it takes extra effort to input railway development into smart city plans, as it is a herculean task to get governments to focus on it with clarity of purpose in passing legislation.
Originality/value
The developed framework reduces complexities when planning and designing rail transport systems compared to many of the existing reductionist planning approaches. The simplicity of the framework would also make it easily adoptable by a wide range of users.
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Cristina Valadas and Ana Matilde Cabral
We are currently experiencing, in western societies, a new reality in health systems, the emergence of an epidemic of chronic diseases, which test and raise new challenges to the…
Abstract
We are currently experiencing, in western societies, a new reality in health systems, the emergence of an epidemic of chronic diseases, which test and raise new challenges to the health systems. This exponential increase in chronic diseases has not been accompanied by updated training of health professionals in this area. The chronic illness implies a bilateral relationship, of commitment and compromise for life, in which the involvement of the sick person must be the rule. The scope of therapeutic education (TE) is making the person autonomous and helping them to maintain or improve their quality of life. To treat patients with chronic disease, health professionals need to adapt their knowledge to their new role in the therapeutic relationship. As for the methodology, a participative observational methodology will be carried out with the training of health professionals who work in this area. It is a descriptive work based on studies and works published by the main schools working in this area, with emphasis on the School of Geneve. The purpose is to identify the problem of chronic diseases, the challenges that patients and health professionals face and how to build educational projects, exploring the use of educational tools, including digital technology.
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Can we broaden the boundaries of the history of economic thought to include positionalities articulated by grassroots movements? Following Keynes’s famous remark from General…
Abstract
Can we broaden the boundaries of the history of economic thought to include positionalities articulated by grassroots movements? Following Keynes’s famous remark from General Theory that ‘practical men […] are usually the slaves of some defunct economist,’ we might be wont to dismiss such a push from below. While it is sometimes true that grassroots movements channel preexisting economic thought, I wish to argue that grassroots economic thought can also precede developments subsequently elaborated by economists. This paper considers such a case: by women at the intersection of the women’s liberation movement and the claimants’ unions movement in 1970s Britain. Oral historical and archival work on these working-class women and on achievements such as their succeeding to establish unconditional basic income as an official demand of the British Women’s Liberation Movement forms the springboard for my reconstruction of the grassroots feminist economic thought underpinning the women’s basic income demand. I hope to demonstrate, firstly, how this was a prefiguration of ideas later developed by feminist economists and philosophers; secondly, how unique it was for its time and a consequence of the intersectionality of class, gender, race, and dis/ability. Thirdly, I should like to suggest that bringing into the fold this particular grassroots feminist economic thought on basic income would widen the mainstream understanding and historiography of the idea of basic income. Lastly, I hope to make the point that, within the history of economic thought, grassroots economic thought ought to be heeded far more than it currently is.
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Marina Apaydin, Martin Johannes Løkse Sand, Rebecca A Hoogendoorn and Maha Eshak
The expected learning outcomes are to understand key frameworks and tools for global leaders through the application of widely used theoretical frameworks on a written business…
Abstract
Learning outcomes
The expected learning outcomes are to understand key frameworks and tools for global leaders through the application of widely used theoretical frameworks on a written business case, understand the role of the leader in a team, apply theories of change to situations to anticipate courses of events and evaluate and apply relevant theory to assess a leader’s character and personality.
Case overview/synopsis
Hassan Allam Holding (HAH) was a family-owned Egyptian engineering, construction and infrastructure company managed by co-Chief Executive Officers and brothers Amr and Hassan Allam. HAH experienced significant growth and success, but eventually, it reached a point where its family governance structure could no longer sustain further growth. Amr and Hassan realized this and started planning to transition toward a corporate governance structure. In 2016, they managed to get the International Finance Corporation on board as an equity partner, and this helped propel the governance transition, but they still needed to find a way to convince the family to step back. This case study can help students understand the issues that may occur during a change within an established organization of any size. The case study considers the implications the change may have on the leader, his personality and his character and how it shapes the leader in question as an outcome. This case study has been designed to be used in one or two sessions and can be offered in management or leadership courses at an undergraduate or graduate level.
Complexity academic level
This case study is intended for graduate and undergraduate students studying a leadership or management course. It can help students comprehend the challenges of a family-owned business and how change is associated with such businesses. The case also considers how leaders are shaped by effectively managing conflict. This case can be considered as Level 1 on a 1–3 scale, as the full description of the situation is given in the case and the task of the students is to analyze the leader and his decisions using various academic concepts and theories (Erskin et al., 2003).
Supplementary materials
Teaching notes are available for educators only.
Subject code
CSS 3: Entrepreneurship
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Byung-Gak Son, Samuel Roscoe and ManMohan S. Sodhi
This study aims to answer the question: What dynamic capabilities do diverse humanitarian organizations have?
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to answer the question: What dynamic capabilities do diverse humanitarian organizations have?
Design/methodology/approach
We examine this question through the lens of dynamic capabilities with sensing, seizing and reconfiguring capacities. The research team interviewed 15 individuals from 12 humanitarian organizations that had (a) different geographic scopes (global versus local) and (b) different missions (emergency response versus long-term development aid). We also gathered data from secondary sources, including standard operating procedures, company websites, and news databases (Factiva, Reuters and Bloomberg).
Findings
The findings identify the operational and dynamic capabilities of global and local humanitarian organizations while distinguishing between their mission to provide long-term development aid or emergency relief. (1) The global organizations, with their beneficiary responsiveness, reconfigured their sensing and seizing capacities throughout the COVID-19 pandemic by pivoting quickly to local procurement or regional supply chains. The long-term development organizations pivoted to multi-year supplier agreements with fixed pricing to counter price uncertainty and accessed social capital with government bodies. In contrast, emergency response organizations developed end-to-end supply chain visibility to sense changes in supply and demand. (2) Local humanitarian organizations developed the capacity to sense demand and supply changes to reconfigure based on their experiential learning working with the local community. The long-term-development local organizations used un-owned and scalable relief infrastructure to seize opportunities to rebuild affected areas. In contrast, emergency response organizations developed their capacity to seize opportunities to provide aid stemming from their decentralized decision-making, a lack of structured procedures, and the authority for increased expenditure.
Originality/value
We propose a theoretical framework to identify humanitarian organizations' operational and dynamic capabilities, distinguishing between global and local organizations and their emergency response and long-term aid missions.
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Madeleine Besson, Philippe Jacquinot, Rémi Jardat and Jean-Luc Moriceau
This article of exploratory research provides a critical perspective on accountability, focusing on three characteristics: transparency, asymmetry and individual agency. An…
Abstract
Purpose
This article of exploratory research provides a critical perspective on accountability, focusing on three characteristics: transparency, asymmetry and individual agency. An experimental method is developed, calling for an ethics of accountability.
Design/methodology/approach
Four entrepreneurs have given accounts of themselves and their projects in life cycle interviews. This article applies Devereux's approach (1967), which allows for opacity (the “unconscious”) to oneself and to others with symmetry between analysts and analysed, and a lack of demarcation between the observer and the observed.
Findings
A tragic entrepreneurial accountability trap of continuous self-justification was discovered, which pertains both to the entrepreneurs and the researchers. Nonetheless, the researchers as inspired by Devereux's method were able to realize a form of accounterability.
Social implications
This article shows that the demands for transparent, asymmetrical and agentive accountability call for ethical reflection. The request for accounts, as resulting in the accounts given and the research conducted into accountability, are all sources of constraints. Differing the accountability situation may lessen the constraints.
Originality/value
This study introduces Devereux's method as an investigative tool in accountability research, opening up new perspectives on communication and analysis. This article shows the researcher as situated both inside and outside of the accountability mechanisms. This article explores a singular form of accountability; that of entrepreneurs who seemingly only account for the future, thereby disconnecting them from others.
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Universities are considered as learning institutions and their output is knowledge. Their main objectives are to promote knowledge and to integrate three main roles: (1) teaching…
Abstract
Universities are considered as learning institutions and their output is knowledge. Their main objectives are to promote knowledge and to integrate three main roles: (1) teaching and learning toward an award; (2) research and publication; and (3) activities centred toward work-based learning. Researchers generally categorize knowledge in three dimensions, cognitive, functional and social competence which are clearly consistent with the French paradigm- savoir, savoir faire, and savoir être. Delamare Le Deist and Winterton (2007) acknowledged that knowledge, that is, understanding is captured by cognitive competence, skills are captured by functional competence and behavioral and attitudinal competencies are captured by social competencies. This chapter describes some basic concepts of social competence in the tertiary education and examines the relationship that exists among knowledge, knowledge management, and social competence. Achieving personal goals and at the same time maintaining positive relationship over time and across situations is one of the main definition of social competence, as brought forward by Rubin and Rose-krasner (1992). Social competence also embraces all the social, emotional and cognitive knowledge and skills individuals require to achieve their goals and to be effective in their relations with others (Kostlenik et al., 2014).
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