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This chapter examines three kinds of relational bonds (trust-based commitments, forbearance-based commitments, and apprehension-based commitments) on which parties rely in the processes employed in negotiating, committing, and executing their cooperative inter-organizational relationships (CIORs). It also considers three different societal contexts with strong, moderately strong, and weak exogenous governance safeguards in which these relational bonds are employed. The authors propose a process theory of relational bonds that fit different contexts. Specifically, our central proposition is that parties to CIORs are more likely to achieve their goals when they rely on relational bonds that fit their societal contexts in which they engage in economic exchanges.

To understand whether the public value approach will improve the performance and legitimacy of Italian universities.

The public value approach is used to identify the factors limiting the improvement of the performance of Italian universities over the period 2007–2009. Four cases are analyzed in order to reveal how universities measure and communicate the public value delivered. The evolution of the whole system is analysed in the light of the three paradigms on public administration: traditional public administration, new public management and public value management.

Recent reforms introduced by the Italian government do not facilitate the overcoming of political and organizational constraints, with the exception of a few noteworthy elements. The dominant role of the Ministry of Education in the definition of universities’ strategic goals combined with the great autonomy traditionally granted to the departments and to single academics leave little room for manoeuvre.

The case of the Italian higher education system highlights the importance of the rules of governance for public value production. The analysis shows that the actual governance of the higher education institutions does not favour the construction of a public value proposition by the universities’ managers. This aspect raises the more general question of identifying the necessary conditions for realizing the public value proposition and determining its presence in all public administrations.

This article contributes to the understanding of mechanisms that hinder the capability of public institutions’ to develop their own public value proposition.

This chapter aims to analyze the interrelationships between the elements of sustainability, socio-interculturalism, and governance. This analysis advances from the assumption that the sustainable socio-intercultural governance requires to be supported by the development of systems that enable the economic growth, the social development and environmental socio-ecosystems of communities, institutions, organizations, and individual levels. The method employed is the reflective-analytical based on the review of literature. It is concluded that the new geographies of sustainable socio-intercultural governance are affected by the coexistence that have solutions to the capacity deficits and dysfunctionalities of processes, institutions, and knowledge systems which have many systemic failures on the capacities of the natural resource management systems. This analysis proposes a new model of socio-intercultural sustainable governance.

This chapter discusses the special case of extractive industries in relation to susceptibility to corruption, especially in states with weak institutional and governance structures. The systemic nature of this corruption is shown in a vicious cycle of extractive resource dependency and corruption which reinforce each other. The chapter then concentrates on the supply side of corruption, and the role of the private sector with domestic and foreign natural resources companies feeding into systemic corruption. Corruption is underpinned by a high demand, high prices for extractive resources scenario, and mitigated by a low demand, low prices scenario. Transparency oriented, anticorruption measures may not be effective in their own right, but a low demand, low prices scenario could provide an opening for such measures to take root, with accompanying benefits to the citizens of resource rich states and their environment. This suggests taking a contingency approach to dealing with corruption.

This research highlights the scenarios that might serve as a strategic vision to describe a future beyond the current library, one which both guides provosts and creates a map for the transformation of human resources and technology in the university research libraries. The scenarios offer managerial leaders an opportunity to envision new roles for librarians and staff which brings a much needed focus on the development of human resources as well as a thought-stream to understand decisions which effectively and systematically move the organization toward a strategic vision.

These scenarios also outline possible future directions research libraries could take by focusing on perspectives from library directors, provosts, and administrators for human resources. The four case study scenarios introduce potential future roles for librarians and highlight the unsustainability of the current scholarly communications model as well as uncertain factors related to the political, social, technical, and demographic issues facing campuses. Given the changes institutions face, scenarios allow directors to include more uncertainty when developing and articulating a vision. These scenarios may start a discussion, before a strategic planning process, to sharpen the evaluations and measures necessary to monitor achievements that define the value of the library.

A growing body of education research considers practices; however, there is less focus on a methodology that enables practical analysis of practices. Use of practice theory is growing, particularly in work and organisational studies, but practice-focused studies more frequently address theoretical than methodological agenda. This chapter proposes a practice-focused, constructivist grounded theory methodology as one approach which can address this gap. After first considering the ways in which, separately and in combination, practice-theory and constructivist grounded theory can support higher education leadership and management research, the chapter considers implementation of this methodology by drawing on a study into the practice of authority in higher education leadership. It concludes by considering some implications for the ways in which practices can be understood and the affordances and limitations of this methodology.