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This paper aims to explore how historical context influences the content and selection of rhetorical legitimation strategies. Using case study method, this paper will focus on how insurance companies and labor tried to defend their legitimacy in the context of enactment of Medicare in the USA. What factors influenced the strategic (rhetorical) decisions made by insurance companies and labor unions in their institutional work?

The study is empirically grounded in archival research, involving an analysis of over 9,000 pages of congressional hearings on Medicare covering the period 1958–1965.

The authors show that rhetorical legitimation strategies depend significantly on the specific historical circumstances in which those strategies are used. The historical context lent credibility to certain arguments and organizations are forced to decide either to challenge widely held assumptions or take advantage of them. The authors show that organizations face strong incentives to pursue the latter option. Here, both the insurance companies and labor unions tried to show that their positions were consistent with classical liberal ideology, because of high respect of classical liberal principles among different stakeholders (policymakers, voters, etc.).

It is uncertain how much the results of the study could be generalized. More information about the organizations whose use of rhetorics the authors studied could have strengthened our conclusions.

The practical relevancy of the revised paper is that the authors should not expect hegemony challenging rhetorics from organizations, which try to influence legislators (and perhaps the larger public). Perhaps (based on the findings), this kind of rhetorics is not even very effective.

The paper helps to understand better how organizations try to advance their interests and gain acceptance among the stakeholders.

In this paper, the authors show how historical context in practice influence rhetorical arguments organizations select in public debates when their goal is to influence the decision-making of their audience. In particular, the authors show how dominant ideology (or ideologies) limit the options organizations face when they are choosing their strategies and arguments. In terms of the selection of rhetorical justification strategies, the most pressing question is not the “real” broad based support of certain ideologies. Insurance company and labor union representatives clearly believed that they must emphasize liberal values (or liberal ideology) if they wanted to gain legitimacy for their positions. In existing literature, it is often assumed that historical context influence the selection of rhetorical strategies but how this in fact happens is not usually specified. The paper shows how interpretations of historical contexts (including the ideological context) in practice influence the rhetorical strategies organizations choose.

This study aims to investigate the adoption of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as the new performance perspective in cities. It also aims to understand how accounting for SDGs begins in city administrations by following Power’s (2015) fourfold development schema composed of policy object formation, object elaboration, activity orchestration and practice stabilization.

Focusing on a network of cities coordinated by the Finnish local government association, we analyzed the six largest cities in Finland employing a holistic multiple case study strategy. Our data consisted of Voluntary Local Reviews (VLRs), city strategies, budget plans, financial statements, as well as results of participant observations and semi-structured interviews with key individuals involved in accounting for SDGs.

We unveiled the SDG framework as an interpretive scheme through which cities glocalized sustainable development as a novel, simultaneously global and local, performance object. Integration of the new accounts in city management is necessary for these accounts to take life in steering the actions. By creating meaningful alignment and the ability to impact managerial practices, SDGs and VLRs have the potential to influence local actions. Our results indicate further institutionalization progress of sustainability as a performance object through SDG-focused work.

While prior research has focused mainly on general factors influencing the integration of the sustainability agenda, this study provides a novel perspective by capturing the process and demonstrating empirically how new accounts on SDGs are introduced and deployed in the strategic planning and management of local governments.

This article focuses on regional-level cooperation in higher education by examining the functional, organizational and political approaches (FOPA) framework for higher education regionalization and using supra-national regional universities as established and successful examples of regional-level higher education cooperation among countries.

A conceptual framework is used to provide the structure for analyzing the key approaches to higher education regionalization, followed by an analysis of supra-national regional universities to demonstrate the application of the model.

The FOPA framework for higher education regionalization includes three approaches. The first is the functional approach, which includes both collaborative academic and research activities among higher education institutions as well strategies and policies to help align systems across a region. The second is the organizational approach, which focuses on networks, organizations, institutions and programs, which facilitate partnerships. The third is the political approach, which includes regional-level agreements, declarations and strategic plans to promote higher education collaboration. Key higher education activities for each approach are discussed in generic terms, with examples provided from major regions of the world.

The research was based on desk research only. No interviews were conducted.

A conceptual analysis and a model were provided for the concept of regionalization of higher education and for regional universities, which can help readers locate their interests and research in the regionalization of higher education. Examples of three different types of regional universities were provided to give concrete illustrations of a regional university.

One of the rationales driving regional universities is to address and increase a sense of regional identify and to meet the social, economic and educational needs of the specified region.

Regional universities, such as the University of West Indies, Arab Open University and the Pan-Africa University, are an understudied phenomenon. Using them as innovative and sustainable examples of higher education regional cooperation and the FOPA model, this study illustrates how single-campus, multiple-campus and virtual regional universities are functioning to meet the diversified needs and priorities across a region through cooperation among countries.

This article aims to analyze the strategic work of Polish entrepreneurs in the furniture industry following the political changes in 1989. The authors examined how these entrepreneurs transitioned from local craftsmen or importers into leaders of international manufacturing companies and how their strategizing contributed to the unprecedented growth of the Polish furniture sector.

The authors examined extant data, specifically biographical interviews conducted with 11 prominent leaders in the Polish furniture industry (Hryniewicki, 2015, 2018). They analyzed within a theoretical framework that integrates J.C. Spender’s theory of strategic management with Barry Johnson’s concept of polarity management. Polarity is a way of understanding and managing interdependent, opposing pairs of values or perspectives that give rise to conflict.

The analysis reveals key patterns of strategic challenges at the level of human agency, history and sense-making. The authors identified four key polarities: life and business, knowledge presence and absence, concordance and discordance, and instrumental and non-instrumental sense-making.

The polarity concept illuminates the interplay of agency and determinism in strategic decision-making, offering valuable insights for methodology and a deeper understanding of Poland’s furniture industry.

Combining two organizational change theories, life cycle and organizational development, this study examines how strategic change cycle has been adopted and implemented across three different organizations, a public organization, an NGO and an intergovernmental organization toward achieving their goals.

This study triangulates three different qualitative research methods: open-ended semi-structured interviews conducted with UN Women Egypt's director, text analysis of the three organizations' websites and the discourse analysis of the Tri-County Foundation's leaders.

Strategic change cycle has been differently formulated, adopted and implemented by the three organizations based on their goals, resources and contexts. While Office Board of Investment adopted a comprehensive reactive change, Tri-County Foundation followed a partial proactive transformation and UN Women Egypt developed a partial reactive strategy. Henceforth, public organizations and nonprofit organizations can develop different strategies of change in function of needs, resources, goals and context.

This study advances a theoretical framework on organizational change by integrating two theories, life cycle and organizational development, presenting four patterns of change: comprehensive reactive, comprehensive proactive, partial reactive and partial proactive.

The purpose of this paper is to explore board functions and their location in family firms.

Through structured induction in a four-case study of medium-sized Swedish family firms, the authors demonstrate that board functions can be located in other arenas than in the common board and suggest propositions that explain their distribution.

(1) The board is but one of several arenas where board functions are performed. (2) The functions performed by the board vary in type and emphasis. (3) The non-family directors in a family firm serve the owners, even sometimes governing them, in what the authors term “bidirectional governance”. (4) The kin strategy of the family influences their governance. (5) The utilization of a board for governance stems from the family (together with its constitution, kin strategy and governance strategy), the board composition and the business conditions of the firm.

Being a case study the findings are restricted to concepts and theoretical propositions. Using structured induction, the study is not solely inductive but still contains the subjectivity of induction.

Governance agents should have an instrumental view on the board, considering it one possible governance arena among others, thereby economizing on governance.

The institutional pressure toward active boards could paradoxically reduce the importance of the board in family firms.

The board of a family company differs in its emphasis of board functions and these functions are performed with varying emphases in different governance arenas. The authors propose the concept of kin strategy, which refers to the governance importance of the structure of the owner and observations on bi-directional governance, indicating that the board can govern the owners.

In this study the authors aim to comprehensively investigate the determinants of voting behavior in Turkey, with a specific focus on the dynamics of the center-periphery debate. Mainly, the authors focus on regional voting patterns during the period that is dominated by the Justice and Development Party (JDP/AKP) in the elections. The authors apply the random effects generalized least squares (GLS) methodology, and analyze electoral data covering four pivotal parliamentary elections (2007, 2011, 2015 and 2018) across all 81 provinces (NUTS III regions). The authors individually examine voting dynamics of the four major parties in parliament: the JDP/AKP, the Republican People's Party (RPP/CHP), the Nationalist Movement Party (NMP/MHP) and the Peoples' Democratic Party (PDP/HDP). The authors contribute to a comprehensive understanding of how socioeconomic cleavages, economic performance, party alignment and social dynamics shape voter preferences in the Turkish context, thereby addressing gaps in the existing literature.

This research employs an ecological study of Turkish NUTS III sub-regions, covering national elections from 2007 to 2018. The authors utilize the random effects GLS method to account for heteroscedasticity and time effects. The inclusion of the June and November 2015 elections enables a comprehensive analysis of the evolving dynamics in Turkish voting behavior. The results remain robust when applying pooled OLS and fixed effect OLS techniques for control.

The study's findings reveal that economic performance, specifically economic growth, plays a pivotal role in the sustained dominance of the JDP/AKP party. Voters closely associate JDP preference with economic growth, resulting in higher voting shares during periods of economic prosperity. Along with economic growth; share of agriculture in regions' GDP, female illiteracy rate, old population rate, net domestic migration, terrorism and party alignment are also influential factors in the Turkish case. Furthermore, differences among sociocultural groups, and East–West dichotomy seem to be important factors that reveal the impact of social cleavages to understand electoral choice in Turkey.

This study contributes to the existing literature by offering a comprehensive multidimensional analysis of electoral behavior in Turkey, focusing on the JDP/AKP dominance period. The main contribution of this study is its multidimensional perspective on the power bases of all main parties, considering key voter choice theories (cleavages, party alignment and retrospective economic performance voting) that have not been systematically analyzed in prior research. The main research question of this study is to examine which factors affect voting behavior in Turkey and how the dynamics of center-periphery or eastern-western region voting behavior under the JDP hegemony can be explained. The contribution of this study consists not only in its empirical testing of panel data approaches but also in its comprehensive analysis of four major political parties. Building upon existing studies in the literature, this research seeks to extend the understanding of voting dynamics for the four main parties in the parliament — JDP/AKP, RPP/CHP, NMP/MHP and PPDP/HDP — by delving into their dynamics individually, thereby expanding the scope of previous studies. This study aims to make a contribution by not only empirically testing panel data approaches but also conducting a comprehensive analysis of four major political parties. Furthermore, the separate inclusion of the 2015 elections and utilization of a panel data approach enrich the analysis by capturing the evolving dynamics of Turkish voting behavior. The study underscores the significance of socioeconomic factors, economic performance and social cleavages for voters' choices within the context of a dominant party rule.

This research aims to theorize how a critical factor, resource access, can paradoxically impact the comprehensiveness of venture location decision processes and the relationship between decision comprehensiveness and new venture performance. To do so, the authors focus on nascent entrepreneurs’ venture location decision processes and introduce resource access as a double-edged sword.

In this conceptual article, the authors draw from the strategic decision-making and resource mobilization literature to theorize about the new venture location decision-making process and its performance implications.

By uncovering the paradox of resource access, the authors propose that high levels of resource access create a paradoxical situation in which nascent entrepreneurs are less likely to use comprehensive decision processes when their benefits are at their greatest.

This work contributes to entrepreneurship research on new venture location and resource mobilization in three important ways. First, the authors advance the literature on nascent entrepreneurs’ location decision-making processes by introducing “location decision comprehensiveness” as a decision process construct and juxtaposing it with resource access to uncover the entrepreneurial decision-making process. Second, the authors develop a more nuanced theorization of the location choices made by nascent entrepreneurs instead of relying on generalized conclusions drawn from well-established corporations’ location decisions. Last, the authors extend the literature on resource mobilization in entrepreneurship by shedding light on the paradoxical aspect of resource access. While previous research has emphasized the favorable effects of resource access on new venture processes and outcomes, the authors contend that it can also negatively impact entrepreneurs’ ability to make effective decisions.

The study aims to provide a clear framework of steps on how to implement the balanced scorecard model at the level of measuring and managing local performance, with a mix between what theoretical approaches show in this matter and examples of applied experiences in different contexts.

The study relies on the case study approach, which was used to present pioneer experiences in the field of application of the model on local government's level, namely, in the USA, England and South Africa. This paper was done by reviewing the original balanced scorecard literature and writings regarding the public and local government sector. This literature formed the basis for analyzing the various sections of study.

Balanced scorecard is one of the important models for developing and measuring local performance. International experiences under study confirmed that application of the model requires the following: The availability of bureaucratic will at the local level to apply the model, necessity of capacity building of local government units to apply it, introduction of institutional and strategic changes to the local units to be able to build their own performance cards, as well as strengthening local information systems, and not standardizing the performance cards at the different local administrative units.

This study will be useful for scholars, policymakers and local executive leaders on ways to apply the balanced scorecards at the local government units.

This article investigates the practical implementation of the ecosystem approach in different branches of public management within an urban context. It explores how ecosystem thinking is introduced, disseminated and applied in a local government organization.

We utilize a qualitative case study methodology, relying on official documents and expert interviews. Our study focuses on the city of Espoo, Finland, which has actively embraced ecosystem thinking as a fundamental framework for its organizational development for almost a decade.

The case of Espoo highlights elements that have not been commonly attributed to the ecosystem approach in the public sector. These elements include (1) the significance of complementary services, (2) the existence of both collaborative and competitive relationships among actors in public service ecosystems and (3) the utilization of digital platforms for resource orchestration. Our study also emphasizes the need for an incremental adoption of ecosystem thinking in organizational contexts to enable its successful implementation.

The study provides valuable insights into the introduction and dissemination of ecosystem thinking in public management. It also further develops previously developed hypotheses regarding public service ecosystems.