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The 1980s and 1990s have seen competition emerge within industries traditionally imbued with monopoly status, for instance, the field of telecommunications. Within these industries, increased competition and the threat of the removal of statutory monopoly has resulted in greater awareness regarding the impact of quality on service and efficient pricing. Discusses, as an example, postal services, an industry of immense importance worldwide, suggests that the emphasis postal services place on the implementation of both timely and reliable service and competitive prices will inherently determine the success they will have withstanding the ever growing threat of international and national competition. While postal services and public utilities share similar peak‐load problems as discussed in the traditional natural monopoly literature, limited deferrability of mail service, together with service differentiated pricing, yields a framework sufficiently different so as to warrant a separate analysis. Presents a model which considers this analysis by developing welfare‐optimal prices, reliabilities and capacities under conditions of stochastic demand subject to reliability constraints on service quality and a minimum profit Ramsey constraint.

The purpose of this paper is to adopt “whole network” perspective and analyzes the governance and control mechanisms in the Universal Postal Union (UPU), one of the oldest and largest inter-governmental networks, through the lens of institutional entrepreneurship theory. The purpose is to introduce a typology of network governance forms to the accounting literature and to analyze the governance and management control mechanisms within the UPU, a “participatory federation” (Provan, 1983) type of network that has managed the challenges of collective collaboration since 1875.

The study benefits from unlimited access to all archival materials of the UPU such as minutes of Congress and committee meetings since 1875 as well as secondary documents and market studies related to the postal sector. The data reported in this study are derived from the archives of the UPU in Berne, Switzerland and interviews conducted with senior officials.

Drawing on the work of Provan (1983) and Provan and Kenis (2008) the authors identify five “ideal type” network governance forms based on such variables as differences in the relative power of network participants and whether these networks have arisen spontaneously or due to external coercion, the authors classify the UPU as a “participatory federation.” Within the theoretical boundaries of this typology the authors identify the multi level governance structures and the use of management control mechanisms by each level of governance. The authors introduce a distinction between the “network constitutional organization” that focusses on the socialization of network members and strategy-level orchestration of the overall network and the “network administrative organization” (NAO) that mobilizes management accounting and control mechanisms to monitor, encourage and facilitate member collaboration. The authors propose that control within a participatory federation is enacted through collective entrepreneurship by governance bodies using management accounting and control mechanisms as institutional carriers.

The paper is focussed on the current state of the UPU’s network structure and processes and did not explore the dynamics around the emergence of the different network governance and control mechanisms. An exploration of the collective construction by network participants of the need for these mechanisms would provide insights into how they emerge and might lead to a better understanding of the role of NAOs in networks.

The paper highlights the challenges faced by collaborative networks and identifies enabling characteristics of a participatory federation’s governance bodies. The empirical observations within the context of the UPU contribute to the theoretical understanding of the desirable characteristics of participatory federations that might be applicable to similar public and private collaborative networks

This study expands the knowledge of management accounting and control systems in networks. It bridges a gap in the accounting literature by adopting a “whole network” perspective and by differentiating types of network governance structures that use management accounting and control systems. This contributes to the understanding of accounting and control across the full range of organizational forms.

In an effort to help policy makers develop competitive postal service strategies, the purpose of this paper is to evaluate the comparative operating efficiencies of postal services across the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) nations and then identify room for service improvement.

As a better alternative to the conventional data envelopment analysis (DEA) which requires the proportional improvements of inputs and outputs simultaneously, the authors propose the combined use of both context-dependent and measure-specific DEAs to measure the relative attractiveness and progress of the national postal operators of OECD countries.

Defying the conventional notion that public enterprises operate less efficiently than private enterprises, the author discovered that some state-owned public enterprises such as postal service operators could still be efficient if managed properly. Even inefficient postal services operators could significantly improve their service performances, once they identified the root causes of their service failures. Through a series of model experiments and testing, the authors found that proposed context-dependent and measure-specific DEA models were more useful for finding such causes than the conventional DEA model.

For public officials and policy makers, the proposed DEAs can pinpoint what it takes to become more efficient and what steps need to be taken to improve postal service operations gradually.

This paper is the first to combine the context-dependent DEA with measure-specific DEA to evaluate the comparative efficiency (or progress) and inefficiency (or regress) of the national postal operators of 25 OECD countries.

Type of article Theoretical with worked example

This case gives readers the opportunity to think about strategies employed in the postal sector amid sector, technological, national and global challenges. It highlights the importance of thinking about real options, and real solutions to counter the failures of the past and the uncertainties of the future.

The case will be particularly useful for master's degrees, Master of Business Administration, doctorate students or undergraduate specialized courses of strategy, public sector management and privatization.

This case study aims to analyze the manner in which LibanPost transformed itself from a government bureaucracy to a commercial company and how, through diversification, it was transformed from a traditional postal operator to a high-end service provider. In addition, it attempts to examine the stages that have led to LibanPost's success, shedding the light on the major barriers and enablers for its reform.

The students will be able to examine how a privately owned postal company succeeded in transforming a courier company from a bureaucratic public administration incurring substantial losses to a profitable commercial company, through privatization, and grasp the major success barriers and enablers for LibanPost, while exploring the reasons behind the failure of the foreign–national partnership.

Teaching notes are available for educators only. Please contact your library to gain login details or email support@emeraldinsight.com to request teaching notes.

Ramsey‐Boiteaux pricing to services offering limited deferability subject to reliability constraints with a specific application to postal services has been investigated by the first of the above authors in. The general results derived in his paper involve welfare‐optimal pricing for a monopolist faced with stochastic demands which impact both demand and cost. These stochastic demands are modeled by probability distributions with fixed parameters. In this paper we extend this approach to the case where the model parameters are not known with certainty. This uncertainty is dealt with by representing the distribution parameters as fuzzy sets in which the membership of a particular value in the fuzzy set represents the degree of belief associated with this parameter value. This approach requires the solution of a system of nonlinear equations for each possible combination of parameter values, and the result is a fuzzy solution vector. This solution vector is then defuzzified to obtain a specific solution to the problem. As in, we illustrate our approach with an application of welfare‐optimal pricing in the context of postal services. Section I reviews relevant literature and discusses the nature of postal services. The problem statement together with general results are presented in Section II, and applied to a postal service problem in Section III. These results are further illustrated via numerical example in section IV. Conclusions are presented in Section V.

Reports on recent attempts made at the US Postal Service to tackle cost effectiveness. Outlines thepostmaster′s efforts to streamline the organisation and deliver quality service. Demonstrates by the results at the Postal Service that improving customer service and cutting costs are not mutually exclusive.

The case has the following learning objectives: to assess the importance of the business environment, its impact on the organization and how the organization responds to the changes in the business environment; to apply the resource-based view of the organization and resource dependence theory; and to apply and analyze the organization’s strategic initiatives within the framework of the political, economic, social and technological analysis model, Porter’s five forces of business analysis and to make recommendations based on the above analysis.

The paradigm shift in technology has an impact on business. With 155,015 Post Offices, India Post has the most widely distributed postal network in the world. This case captures the journey of India Post from inception to its current form. Over its life, the organization has evolved because of multiple changes. But the recent changes have threatened to disrupt the organization. These changes have been induced by three major forces: technology, the rise of competition, especially foreign players, and social changes in urban and rural India because of changing consumption patterns as incomes rise and online retail grows. The organization has reacted to this threat by leveraging its resources to offer new products according to customer tastes by entering more unique industries and product categories. They have started logistics services in association with Indian railways and started offering retail services such as bill collection and college application forms. Also, they have created a financial division, “Payment Bank.” Thus, they have evolved from being a single entity of postal-related services to various services. The case poses a dilemma if these product diversifications are thriving as the organization’s product portfolio has diversified, given its existing capabilities and ability to create newer capabilities, particularly the payment bank.

The case is ideally suited for the discussion of resource-based view of the firm in the subject strategic management and organizational theory. The case can be used to discuss resource dependence theory as well. It is equally well suited to discuss the impact of environment in business in the subject organization theory and the impact of technology on change in the subject organizational change. The case is meant for MBA. The case can be used for executive audience as well.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 11: Strategy.

Japan has had four periods of public sector reform since World War II. This chapter discusses the leadership for reform during the occupation period, the high economic growth period, the low economic growth period and the search for a ‘new’ Japan under various present difficulties. Reforms reflect the priorities of the time and interests of prime ministers, whose style of functioning also affects how public sector reforms are advanced. During the occupation period, the Administrative Management Agency was established in the Prime Minister’s Office and was responsible for the overall management of national government organizations. It was staffed by civil servants who were experts in their areas. Since the 1980s, furthering privatization, deregulation and reorganization, advisory councils for the prime minister were also used, involving influential business leaders and scholars.

This chapter shows that political leadership, especially that of the prime minister and minister in charge of administrative reform, is important in deciding on highly political issues, to persuade or direct politicians and administrators to follow the leadership, to inspire and get the support of the general public and to ensure the support or acceptance of those concerned. Where prime ministers are not directly involved, leadership is provided by professional administrators under the general support of the prime minister and the minister responsible for administrative reforms. It is also pointed out that reform sustainability occurs through institutionalization, incentives, management and producing meaningful results.

The purpose of this paper is to present the results of an original satisfaction survey in the context of a new public private partnership (PPP) in the Lebanese postal sector, highlighting traditionally overlooked linkages between PPPs, quality management and customer satisfaction. The ascendancy of PPPs in recent years has been attributed to key drivers including greater value for money, and enhanced service quality. However, very few studies to date have investigated the success of service performance improvement in the PPP context, by gauging customer satisfaction.

The paper is a literature review and customer satisfaction survey.

The findings in this paper suggest a good level of satisfaction with the quality of services received through the PPP in question but mixed results concerning the impact of consumer characteristics on satisfaction ratings.

In the paper the relationship between customer satisfaction and quality is reviewed. Customer satisfaction is measured in the PPP context and a neglected dimension in customer satisfaction measurement addressed namely, whether ratings of satisfaction vary systematically on the basis of customer characteristics.