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This paper aims to develop a greater understanding of international telecommunications policy diffusion through preliminary, qualitative analysis of an expected utility model. The model is tested through analyses of diffusion of spectrum license allocation policies within and between regions.

A qualitative comparative case method is used. Cases are developed from secondary data from the European Union and South America, and analyzed at the national and regional levels.

The results suggest: the expected utility model can be used for in‐depth qualitative analyses to compare effects of various diffusion mechanisms; diffusion of spectrum license allocation policies at the regional level was more strongly driven by a policy's likely effectiveness, as compared to potential payoffs for policymakers; and conversely, at the national level diffusion was driven by both payoffs for the policymakers and likely policy effectiveness.

The two academic contributions of the paper are its expansion of a unified policy diffusion model to simultaneously account for regional and national levels of governance, as well as for technological change and its application in the telecommunications domain. Practical contributions include providing a framework for systematic analysis of a telecommunications policy's benefits for the public as well as policymakers.

The spread of corporate board quota legislation is studied in light of diffusion theory. Mechanisms of diffusion, path dependency and critical junctures can contribute to explaining the spread of policy reforms, such as the corporate board quota legislation. The empirical section describes the Norwegian reform process and maps out the ongoing European and global reform processes and debates. Seven countries, in addition to Norway, have in recent years initiated legal reforms and adopted corporate board quota rules: Spain, Iceland, France, the Netherlands, Belgium, Italy and Malaysia. However, the debates over the introduction of parallel legislation extend further, and are a burning issue in several other Western European countries, as well as globally. The discussion addresses why this policy spreads, and tries to understand the complexities of factors that have led to the diffusion of public debate and legal reform of corporate board quota.

The purpose of this paper is to show that research on policy diffusion mechanism of Government Procurement of Public Services (GPPS) is beneficial to improve the efficiency of policy formulation and implementation.

In view of the four dimensions which are internal demand, external pressure, policy innovation environment and service characteristic, a system of factors affecting policy diffusion is established. On this basis, a Multilayer Fuzzy Cognitive Map (MFCM) model for policy diffusion of GPPS is constructed. Nonlinear Hebbian Learning algorithm and genetic algorithm are applied to optimize the two components of the MFCM model, which are relationship between nodes at the same layer and influence weights between nodes at different layers, respectively. Taking Nanjing municipal government purchasing elderly-care services in China as the empirical object, simulation of policy diffusion based on the MFCM model is carried out, aiming to obtain the key factors influencing policy diffusion and the dynamic diffusion mechanism of GPPS policy.

Research results show that, compared with monolayer Fuzzy Cognitive Map, the MFCM model converges faster. In addition, simulation results of policy diffusion indicate that economic development level of jurisdiction, superior pressure, administrative level and operability of services are key influencing factors which are under four dimensions correspondingly. And the dynamic influencing mechanism of key factors has also been learned.

This paper constructs the MFCM model, which is a new approach based on several monolayer FCMs, to study the policy diffusion mechanism.

Substantial research has been conducted examining policy diffusion among both the American states and the nations of the developed world and to a somewhat lesser extent, developing worlds. Little research, especially at the nation-state level, has focused upon budget systems, however. We use case studies of 18 diverse countries (Menifield, 2011) to conceptualize national budget systems and, based upon this conceptualization, to identify clusters of nations with similar systems. We found evidence suggesting that policy diffusion may be occurring in the realm of national budget systems. Our analysis shows that budgetary institutions and behaviors can and do form clusters that are useful in analyzing national budget systems. Our ability to describe clusters of nations with similar budget systems could prove to be a helpful tool for analyzing international policy diffusion.

The purpose of this paper is twofold: to analyse the diffusion of an innovative policy or service and the factors influencing it through an explorative study of the diffusion of the Bookstart program in Taiwan; and second, to provide an analytical framework for further study of this program.

The study is both empirical and theoretical. It uses data from existing studies and also agencies involved in Bookstart to explain the diffusion of the program. It then draws on theories of policy diffusion and the initial findings of this study to develop an analytical framework for the further study of the diffusion of the Bookstart program.

The Bookstart program, which is designed to promote reading habits for children 0 to 3 years old and to strengthen parent‐children relations, was originally initiated in the UK. It was first introduced into Taiwan in Taichung County in 2003. The paper shows how the program spread throughout Taiwan and indicates the role of the key players in the diffusion, including charitable institutions, local politicians and leaders, local authority agencies, and the Ministry of Education. The paper posits an analytical framework identifying factors which may help to promote or facilitate the diffusion. In this respect, the paper draws on the theoretical literature and also initial evidence from the research so far undertaken. This will guide the research in the next stage of the study.

This explorative study provides an example of the nature, process and direction of the diffusion of a policy or service innovation, and suggests the possible factors promoting or facilitating it, as identified in the initial findings of the research and in the relevant theoretical literature.

Despite the critical role of the policy environment in facilitating the advancement of building information modeling (BIM) as a systemic innovation to reshape traditional facility design, construction and operation processes, scant scholarly attention has been paid to systematically investigating how and why complex BIM policies are concretely and gradually implemented in different regional contexts from a dynamic policy diffusion perspective. This study aims to empirically investigate how different types of BIM policy instruments are dynamically implemented in heterogeneous regions over time and how the diffusion of BIM policies across different regions is comprehensively impacted by both internal efficiency needs and external legitimacy pressures.

This study employed a positivist research paradigm in which BIM policy data from 182 prefecture-level and above cities in China during 2011–2022 were analyzed with quantitative approaches for theory verification. Based on the content analysis of the evolutionary characteristics of the adopted BIM policy instruments in heterogeneous regions over time, the event history analysis (EHA) method was then used to further examine the mechanisms underlying the diffusion of BIM policies across different regions.

The content analysis results show that while environmental instruments (such as technological integration and goal planning) are the primary policy instruments currently adopted in China, recent years have also witnessed increasing adoptions of supply-side instruments (such as fiscal support and information support) and demand-side instruments (such as demonstration projects and tax incentives). After controlling for the impacts of regional fiscal and technical resources, the EHA results illustrate that BIM policy adoption positively relates to regional construction industry scale but negatively relates to regional industry productivity and that compared with public pressures from industry participants, vertical pressures from the central government and horizontal pressures from neighboring regions are more substantial drivers for policy adoption.

As an exploratory effort of using a dynamic policy diffusion perspective to systematically investigate how BIM policies are adopted in heterogeneous regional contexts to facilitate BIM advancement, this study not only characterizes the complexity and dynamics of BIM policies but also provides deepened understandings of the mechanisms underlying policy adoption in the conservative construction industry. The findings hold implications for how multifarious policy instruments can be more effectively and dynamically adopted to facilitate the advancement of BIM and related technologies as innovative solutions in the construction domain.

To resolve the limited access to capital by local governments due to the Great Recession, the United States Federal Government responded with the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) which included the Build America Bond (BAB) program. The result of this program was considerable interest cost savings to state and local governments, but many local governments chose to issue traditional tax-exempt bonds instead of BABs. Using a policy diffusion framework and hazard model approach, we identify factors that affected the speed of BAB adoption by local governments. Results show that underwriter and financial adviser experience along with the internal characteristics of the local governments played a significant role in adoption. These findings have implications for future fiscal policies targeting local governments for the purpose of timely economic recovery.

The purpose of this paper is to examine challenges multinational companies face during the diffusion of their information security policies. Parent companies use these policies as their discourse for legitimization of their practices in subsidiaries, which leads to value conflicts in subsidiaries. The authors postulate that, when properly crafted, information security policies can also be used to reduce the very conflicts they are creating.

The proposed framework is conceptualized based on the review of literatures on multinational companies, information security policies and value conflict.

The authors identified three factors that may lead to value conflict in subsidiary companies: cultural distance, institutional distance and stickiness of knowledge. They offer three recommendations based on organizational discourse, ambidexterity and resource allocation to reduce value conflict.

The authors postulate that information security policies are the sources of value conflict in subsidiary companies. Yet, when crafted properly, these policies can also offer solutions to minimize value conflict.

The proposed framework can be used to increase policy diffusion success, minimize value conflict and, in turn, decrease information security risk.

The growing literature on information security policy literature is yet to examine the diffusion of policies within multinational companies. The authors argue that information security policies are the source of, and solution to, value conflict in multinational companies.

This paper aims to review how current policy instruments drive (or not) environmental innovation and, by doing so, to reinvestigate the relationship between innovation and regulation.

A comprehensive literature review on innovation and environmental regulation created a theoretical foundation of the paper. Using the grounded theory, a model was developed and evaluated using interviews. This is a timely topic as the new shape of recent environmental regulation appears to be fairly strict. A new model is presented to encapsulate highly dynamic interaction of environmental innovation and regulation to provide results that reflect on the present innovation behaviour and its implications.

The model highlights various diffusion pathways that are triggered by the main three drivers of innovation namely government (regulation), market (competition and cost) and technology which has the possibility of an autonomous diffusion.

The empirical data are limited to 13 qualitative experts' interviews within industry, consultancies and governmental departments.

The suggested model is particularly useful for policy makers to better understand the innovation dynamics and its diffusion pathways to design smarter regulations that incentivise rather than force organisations to comply with regulation.

The paper shows how regulation drives (or not) innovation and how various diffusion pathways can be used by external stakeholders to direct and promote innovation.

Purpose – Since the mid-1980s, unemployment policy reforms in Europe and throughout the rich democracies have stressed publicly supported activation of the unemployed through both reductions in perceived disincentives to work as well as commitments for improved training, employment services, and related policies. In this chapter, I systematically explore the domestic and international political economic sources of these policy changes.

Methodology/approach – I test a set of hypotheses – original and derivative – about the domestic and international determinants of labor market policy change through pooled time-series cross-section analysis of 1980-to-2002 annual data from 18 capitalist democracies. The dependent variables consist of national spending on active labor market policy, measures of passive unemployment compensation benefits, and the ratio of active to passive unemployment program spending. Causal models account for spatial diffusion of policy reforms as well as core political and economic determinants of policy change.

Findings – I find that Left party governments and coordinated market institutions buoy resources for active labor market programs, maintain relatively generous passive unemployment supports and entitlements, and, at the same time, foster a shift to more active social policy. International trade openness promotes generous active labor market policies while more left-leaning voters and veto points within the polity significantly constrain reductions in unemployment benefits and entitlement rights. De-industrialization reinforces policy reforms toward activation while high unemployment rates engender cuts in passive unemployment benefits and eligibility conditions.

Originality/value – Overall, the chapter demonstrates that the economic effects on policy change notwithstanding, politics fundamentally matters: domestic political dynamics and variations in institutions explain the preponderance of the change (or lack thereof) in unemployment policy.