Decision-making Actors Research Articles

Do Leaders’ Emotional Labor Strategies Influence the Leaders’ Emotional Exhaustion? Moderating Role of Emotional Intelligence: Longitudinal Study on NGOs

Emotional labor strategies play crucial role in leadership effectiveness. Non-profit organizations are significant actors in decision-making and policy implementation at multiple levels of global governance and therefore leaders of NPOs need to manage their emotions, behaviors and to polish their expertise, knowledge, core competencies and skills to drive their organizations effectively. The purpose of current study is to examine that how leaders’ emotional labor strategies influence their emotional exhaustion by considering the moderating role of emotional intelligence. Study is longitudinal, descriptive and quantitative in nature. By following emotional labor theory, theoretical framework has been testified by obtaining data from 400 leaders of 250 selected non-profit organizations from all over the country. As study is longitudinal in nature therefore data have been collected two times from same respondents by applying simple random sampling technique. By using the structural equation modeling technique, results divulged that leaders’ emotional labor strategies significantly associated with their emotional exhaustion. Specifically surface acting positively related to leaders’ emotional exhaustion while deep acting and display of genuine emotions negatively and significantly associated with leaders’ emotional exhaustion. Moderated hierarchical regression analysis proved that emotional intelligence significantly moderate the relationship between emotional labor strategies (surface acting, deep acting, display of genuine emotions) and leaders’ emotional exhaustion. Therefore leaders with high level of emotional intelligence can moderate their level of emotional exhaustion while performing emotional labor strategies. Current study provides insightful understanding and guidelines that how leaders can adopt different emotional labor strategies to tackle their emotional exhaustion level and to play their role in effective manners in non-profit organizations.

What do We Have in Common? The Development of Common Resources in a Meta-organization

We study the development process of common resources in Helix Nebula. Helix Nebula is a meta-organization of highly heterogeneous collaborating actors, including scientific organizations like CERN, EMBL, and ESA, commercial cloud providers and public infrastructure organizations. The actors in Helix Nebula collaborate to establish a European open science cloud that can be used by scientific institutes to flexibly buy cloud computing resources from different commercial organizations. This requires the development of common resources to allow demand and supply actors to use the cloud computing infrastructure effectively. We study the process of development of common resources in Helix Nebula as an exemplary meta- organization. Our study illuminates that in the crystallizing process of common resources different development options emerge that trigger the surfacing of differences and dependencies surface. This leads to a reconfiguration of the development options, around which clusters of decision-making actors and clusters of legitimating actors shape emerging micro- alliances. Thus, our study explains the development of common resources in meta-organizations of highly heterogeneous actors without hierarchical means is an organizing process that includes a continuous reconfiguration crystallizing development options and respective micro-alliances of decision-making and legitimating actors.

The Evolution of Saudi Foreign Policy and the Role of Decision-making Processes and Actors

Saudi Arabia has witnessed a centralisation of power in the office of the deputy crown prince, which has amounted to a shift in decision-making from consensual and deliberative to swift and adventurous, most markedly in foreign policy. This centralisation is coupled with an increase in institutionalisation. A new decision-making pattern and rising Iranian power in the region have affected the evolution of Saudi foreign policy. The Saudi crown prince’s strict handling of Shia dissidents acknowledges the perceived extension of the Iranian threat to internal security. The relationship between these two princes and Saudi political competition with Iran will affect the evolution of Saudi foreign policy in a critical manner in the future.

Positional Power in Hierarchies

Power is a core concept in the analysis and design of organisations. In this paper we consider positional power in hierarchies. One of the problems with the extant literature on positional power in hierarchies is that it is mainly restricted to the analysis of power in terms of the bare positions of the actors. While such an analysis informs us about the authority structure within an organisation, it ignores the decision-making mechanisms completely. The few studies which take into account the decision-making mechanisms make all use of adaptations of well-established approaches for the analysis of power in non-hierarchical organisations such as the Banzhaf measure; and thus they are all based on the structure of a simple game, i.e. they are 'membership based'. We demonstrate that such an approach is in general inappropriate for characterizing power in hierarchies as it cannot be extended to a class of decision-making mechanisms which allow certain actors to terminate a decision before all other members have been involved. As this kind of sequential decision-making mechanism turns out to be particularly relevant for hierarchies, we suggest an action-based approach - represented by an extensive game form - which can take the features of such mechanisms into account. Based on this approach we introduce a power score and measure that can be applied to ascribe positional power to actors in sequential decision making mechanisms.

Haiti’s Army, Stabilization and Security Sector Governance

Haiti’s long and difficult security sector reform (SSR) process has entered a new phase. The reinstatement of the Haitian armed forces, nearly 20 years after former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide disbanded them, adds a new set of actors and more complexity to a process already struggling to deliver results amidst a seemingly endless series of political crises. The armed forces must be an impartial and apolitical institution if they are to contribute to stability in Haiti – an uncertain proposition given their past inability to stay out of the political arena. Building on a summary of the latest developments in the reinstatement process, this paper discusses its implications for Haiti’s prolonged international engagement. In particular, the paper focuses on the process to develop a new White Paper on Defence and National Security in Haiti. This process has the potential to contribute to two of the most significant shortcomings of SSR in Haiti, a limited focus on security sector governance and a lack of local ownership. The reinstatement process has been an interesting test case of the international donor community’s commitment to the concept of local ownership, long held to be a moral and practical pillar of international engagement. Though reinstatement has been driven by Haitian authorities, the process has struggled to make progress without donor support, raising questions about the appropriate role of international actors in strategic decision-making at the national level. Regardless of their initial reaction to reinstatement, Haiti’s international donors risk missing an opportunity to influence the development of an important pillar of Haiti’s post-MINUSTAH security sector by choosing to remain on the sidelines.

Natural resource industry involvement in collaboration for water governance: influence on processes and outcomes in Canada

Natural resource industries are increasingly significant actors in environmental decision-making. Possessing vast institutional and technical capacity, firms have an important role to play in ‘new’ governance strategies such as collaboration. These strategies are often based upon assumptions of equitable influence. This paper investigates the nature of resource industry participation in collaborative water governance in Canada, and the potential consequences of that participation as investigated using power theory. The study used comparative cases to reveal that resource industries are able to shape collaboration, and the issues collaborated upon, at multiple analytical levels both internal and external to the collaborative process in ways not available to other actors. Analysis also revealed that resource industry participation in collaboration did not reflect a commitment to engage in shared learning and the reexamination of values and interests as presupposed by collaborative theory. Collaboration is thus challenged in producing equitable, representative outcomes when resource industries participate.

Gendered division of labour and feminisation of responsibilities in Kenya; implications for development interventions

Analysing gender roles as a social organisation element of a community is critical for understanding actors’ rationales and agency with regard to allocation and use of resources. This article discusses gender relations and how they determine development outcomes, based on a highland-lowland case-study of participants of Farmer Field Schools in Kakamega Central Sub-County (highland) and Mbeere South Sub-County (lowland). The gender relations at stake include the gendered division of labour, gender roles and intra-household power relations as expressed in access and control of resources and benefits and their implications for agricultural development. The study used mixed methods, the Harvard Analytical Framework of gender roles and draws on the Neo-Marxist position on exploitation, categorisation and institutionalisation of power relations, empowerment and the critical moments framework to discuss the results. Results in both Sub-Counties show that patriarchy prevails, determining institutional design, access and control of resources and benefits. Social positions shape capabilities and strategies of actors in decision-making and use of resources to justify gender-specific institutional arrangements. In Kakamega, men get the lion share of incomes from contracted sugarcane farming despite overburdening workloads on women, while in Mbeere, both men and women derive incomes from Khat (Catha Edulis) enterprises. However, women are expected to spend their earnings on household expenditures, which were hitherto responsibilities of men, thereby contributing to the feminisation of responsibilities. Development policies and interventions thus need to be based on an understanding of men and women’s differential access and control over resources and the institutions underpinning men and women’s bargaining power in order to adopt more effective measures to reduce gender inequalities.

The new European Union economic governance: what about accountability?

The euro crisis marked the start of the so-called ‘new European Union economic governance’. This new economic governance brings along different kinds of changes in the status of decision-making actors. Some of these changes involve power shifts, which can be categorised as either vertical or horizontal. Vertical power shifts transfer powers between different levels of government, usually from the national level to the European Union level. Horizontal power shifts transfer powers away from discretionary decision-making by governments to independent institutions. The new economic governance also implies a restriction in the discretionary decision-making power of governments by the imposition of policy rules. In this article, the accountability problems involved with these power shifts are analysed. It finds that, overall, the implementation process of the new economic governance has harmed accountability. Points for practitioners The key implication of this article is that the new governance arrangements made by the European Union to tackle the euro crisis are lacking in accountability and legitimacy. The moves towards more rules replacing policy discretion and towards entrusting policies to independent agencies rather than politically accountable governments are to the detriment of political accountability. Policy efficiency comes at a high price in terms of political acceptance as trust in the European Union is negatively influenced by the new governance system. Practitioners should keep this in mind when designing governance systems.

Role of Health Journalism in Promoting Communication among Stakeholders in Healthcare Sector

The concept of stakeholder participation has attracted considerable attention in recent years among health researchers especially in its perceived role in advancing knowledge economy which is fast becoming a key driving force in global healthcare sector and development. Knowledge dissemination among healthcare stakeholders has been greatly facilitated thanks to the remarkable progress of information and communication technology. However, there remains huge scope for improvement in terms of increasing South-South and North-South cooperation in healthcare communication. In order for healthcare service industry in emerging economies stay competitive in today’s complex and volatile economic environment, understanding the interest of different stakeholders, and how their influence shape various domains of social development is crucial. The magnitude of the task is overwhelming and success will depend on integrative approach by local and international actors in strategic decision making and translating to concrete policy framework which will provide the key for long term success for healthcare institutions. The present study draws on key messages regarding the necessity of cross-professional communication in health sector development by synthesizing insights from the existing literature. The authors underscore the role of health journalism as a potential instrument for strengthening health policy advocacy, developing international standards in communication and more effective knowledge management.

ASEAN Decision-Making Process: Before and after the ASEAN Charter

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has long presented IR theorists with a paradox. This is due to the fact that it survived decades of intra-mural conflicts without having provided member states with any of the benefits that justify regional institutional arrangements in Europe. Current debate over the association?s effectiveness centers on ASEAN?s informal, strictly intergovernmental decision-making process, generally referred to as the ?ASEAN Way?. Supporters credit it with having prevented intra-regional conflicts from escalating into open war by building confidence among member states; while critics regard endurance of this sovereignty-centered decision-making process as a fundamental obstacle to regional integration and emphasize the significant costs it entails. Notwithstanding widespread recognition of the essential role the ASEAN decision-making process plays in explaining regional cooperation, scholars seldom went beyond presenting the various formal and informal procedures, examining their consequences in relation to specific aspects of cooperation, or acknowledging their role in serving the interests of governments. The aim of this article is to provide an in-depth assessment of the evolution of regional decision-making actors and practices and examine the extent of the changes provided for by the ASEAN Charter. It looks at the role these practices play in achieving the objectives member governments set for the association, and finds that the basic policy-making cycle negotiated in late 1960s ? early 1970s has been reinforced by subsequent institutional changes. The conclusion discusses implications of the continued relevance of this process to fulfilling ASEAN objectives.

3N-AHP Model, the New Multiactor Multicritera for the Selection of Optimal Corridors of the Line Infrastructure Facilities

In this paper is developed a complex model for the evaluation and selection of the optimum spatial solutions of the corridor line infrastructural facility, which is characterized by multiactor and multicriteria approach. The model is based on the multiactor multicriteria analysis methodology (MAMCO - The Multi Actor Multi Criteria Analysis Methodology) where the relevant decision-making actors, verified by stakeholder analysis (The Stakeholdes analysis), based on the criteria of evaluation that are sorted in the proper hierarchy and whose relevance is confirmed by the factor analysis (the Factor analysis) using the evaluation and ranking of alternatives of the AHP method (the Analityc Hierarchy Process), which was selected by intelligent access with the help of decision tree (decision Tree), offered from a set of alternatives to choose the optimum solution, and the accuracy of their selection check by sensitivity analysis (sensitivity analisys).

Stakeholding as sorting of actors into categories: implications for civil society participation in the CDM

Following a deliberative shift towards public–private partnership networks in global environmental governance, the multi-stakeholder framework is increasingly advocated for engaging multiple actors in collective decision-making. As this arrangement relies on proper participatory conditions in order to include all relevant stakeholders, input legitimacy is crucial to achieving legitimate outcomes. However, ‘stakeholding’ implies that actors—recast into a specific institutional context—are sorted into new formal or informal categories. This paper scrutinizes the clean development mechanism (CDM) under the Kyoto Protocol to interrogate the problematic issue of ‘stakeholding’—i.e. the ‘sorting’ of actors—in enacting the multi-stakeholder framework. Based on an analysis of 25 CDM projects that provides insight into the widest range of participation opportunities for civil society regarding specific projects, this paper considers how certain institutional context of the Mechanism’s stakeholder framework affects the involvement of civil society actors and the implications of this for balanced and fair input legitimacy. The findings suggest that, in practice, the informal corporate-induced sorting of actors into internal and external stakeholders keeps civil society actors outside the CDM’s inner circle, forcing them to voice their concerns regarding specific projects via CDM insiders or through irregular channels. Furthermore, the absence of a clear definition of stakeholder in local consultations results in the inclusion of unsorted actors, destabilizing the distribution of participation opportunities. The paper concludes that recasting the deliberative principles of openness and plurality into the CDM’s corporate-inspired stakeholding creates a specific institutional context that imposes more than one set of perhaps incompatible stakeholder categories while impairing input legitimacy.

It Takes Four to Tango: Long Noncoding RNA PANDA, SAF-A, Polycomb Repressive Complexes and NF-Y in Senescence Regulation

Cellular senescence is a stable cell cycle arrest that inhibits the outgrowth of pre-cancerous cells but is also implicated in wound healing, embryonic development, aging and age-related pathologies. Our knowledge on gene regulatory circuits that establish and maintain the senescence phenotype is highly fragmentary. Here, we provide several lines of evidence supporting a critical and novel function of scaffolding-attachment-factor A SAF-A and long, noncoding RNA PANDA in the establishment and maintenance of the senescence phenotype. First, we demonstrate that SAF-A and PANDA are differentially expressed in presenescent compared to senescent cells. Second, we show that both SAF-A and PANDA actively contribute to senescence induction and maintenance. Finally, we establish that SAF-A and PANDA physically and functionally interact to directly repress senescence- and proliferation-promoting genes by regulating access of polycomb repressive complexes PRC1 and PRC2 as well as transcription factor NF-YA to their cognate target genes. Together, our data identify DNA-RNA-binding protein SAF-A and long, noncoding RNA PANDA as key actors in senescence cell fate decision and unravel the importance of cell fate dependent target gene changes of transcription factors and noncoding RNAs.

Global Constitutionalism and Global Governance: Towards a Un-Driven Global Constitutional Governance Model

The development of the UN governance process-model provides the basic constitutional framework for an integrated system of global governance that unifies the different legal systems under constitutional principles and procedures that respect pluralism and their overall diversity. It is however evident that any system of global governance requires a broader range of mechanisms to enable the meaningful involvement of new actors in decision-making, given the failure of the inclusion mechanisms implemented thus far in the intergovernmental UN system. It is therefore clear that the new model that is being developed should be seen as only the beginning of a global constitutionalization process.

Mindsets, mind sets and mind sense

This paper theorises that a person’s mindset is a commonplace trait that has an impact in economic systems. A mindset contrasts with other theoretics which use choice and information sets to limit the economic actor’s decision-making by focusing on the description of a person’s knowledge rather than on available options. The persistent way a person thinks about the world influences their treatment of information and further development of knowledge. The mindset concept accommodates the complexity of individuals and their idiosyncrasies, whereas a standard economic approach simplifies these characteristics. In this paper, Lamberton’s discussion of mindsets is extended from information sharing, cultural embeddedness and lock-in to the necessity of a mindset held by each person, change in a person’s knowledge and the impact on groups of people. Instead of being a statement about the limited capacity of a person to think, a mindset is a consequence of history and the build-up of knowledge through disjointed experiences. It is argued that a mindset does not necessarily restrict a person to set economic activity, but instead preserves wider economic structures. Through some examples of mindsets, such as the entrepreneurial mindset, this discussion moves away from the acquire-then-use understanding of how people use information towards an economic person with a mind sense constructed through situated learning.

A Bayesian Approach to Maximising Inner Compatibility in AHP-Systemic Decision Making

The challenges of the knowledge society and the development of the information and communication technologies favour the participation of multiple, spatially distributed actors in decision making processes. In this context, Systemic Decision Making (Moreno-Jimenez et al. in Systemic decision making in AHP: a Bayesian approach, 2014) provides a new approach to dealing with complex multi-actor decision making problems in which individual preferences in a fixed set of alternatives are viewed from a holistic standpoint under the “principle of tolerance”. Moreno-Jimenez et al. (Systemic decision making in AHP: a Bayesian approach, 2014) base the integration of preferences on the tolerance distribution, which can be used to reach a holistic, joint decision solution in a Bayesian AHP-Systemic Decision Making context. As with any aggregation procedure or synthesis measure, however, some of the actors involved in the resolution process may not be in agreement with the joint solution. In this paper, we propose a measure (which we call the compatibility index) to evaluate the level of tolerance of the actors involved in the decision making process with regard to the resulting tolerance distribution (inner compatibility). We also develop two algorithms to improve the level of tolerance. The methodology is illustrated with a case study based on a simplified version of a real e-cognocracy application (Moreno-Jimenez and Polasek in J Multi-Criteria Decis Anal 12:163–176, 2003) carried out in cooperation with the City Council of Zaragoza.

Using economic geography to reinvigorate land-change science

In this paper we review the implications of neoclassical economic framings within the interdisciplinary field of land-change science. We argue that current pressing global environmental problems, such as land grabs, loss of critical carbon sinks and the increasing importance of corporate actors in land-use decision-making, necessitate a reconsideration of neoclassical conceptualizations of what the economy is, who economic actors are and how they make decisions, and how environment–economy linkages operate in a globalized world. We argue that concepts from economic geography can help land change science move beyond neoclassical framings. The first concept is that the economic (including markets, commodities, and rational decision-makers) is neither separate nor universal, but is historical and socially embedded. The second is to use these notions to understand the spatial organization of economic activity. The framework of global production networks, in particular, will help land change scientists conceptualize and represent teleconnections. Using economic geography to move beyond neoclassical economic framings will bring a fresh approach to economic change that holds much promise for invigorating land change science.

The conflicting effects of multi-level governance and the partnership principle:Evidence from the Italian experience

With reference to cohesion policy, multi-level governance (MLG) is the policy-making architecture that implements the subsidiarity principle, which aims for direct involvement bringing government closer to the citizen. In parallel, the partnership principle (PP) has been introduced to guarantee the participation of social and economic actors in both decision making and implementation processes in order to better understand and respond to territorial needs. A review of existing literature identifies opposing views on the benefit of this complex architecture. This paper investigates potentially conflicting effects of MLG and the PP on political accountability, for example by blurring responsibilities and corrupting stakeholder engagements. The Italian case is used to test this hypothesis and identify bottlenecks. Initial findings suggest that the empowerment of new actors by means of MLG has had the effect of disclosing political influence from several players in the decision-making arena, therefore obscuring the accountability of the different tiers involved both vertically and horizontally. This is because actors in the governance chain might tend to shift blame of policy failure towards higher or lower governmental levels. Additionally, the engagement of stakeholders may reduce the efficiency of implementation processes both through a lack of inclusiveness in the decision and policymaking style or through a lack of competences within civil society in interpreting local needs in relation to EU cohesion policy goals. This article concludes by outlining possible solutions for cohesion policy practice to minimize the negative consequences of a multi-tier/multi-actor system.

Exploring universities' transformative potential for sustainability-bound learning in changing landscapes of knowledge communication

Abstract In processes of sustainability communication, the communicative interplay between the individual citizen and society, inseparably linked to intermediary levels of mutual mediation and reconciliation, is essential. Since attaining a sustainable society without societal communication about sustainability would seem to be impossible, the design of communicative interfaces between science, politics and the public is of particular significance. As a consequence, this paper aims to highlight meaning, role and interdependencies of sustainability-oriented knowledge communication against the backdrop of universities' education, research, and innovation activities. These approaches do not only allow for deepened analyses and substantial optimization of stored knowledge but, furthermore, also highlight opportunities for various contexts of sustainability-oriented governance – above and beyond higher education. Subsequently, these approaches are critiqued within the context of knowledge communication and analysed in the light of the contrasting “internal rationalities” of science and politics. In doing so, trends in medialization in both domains are taken as much into account as participative practices for including non-scientific actors in political decision-making. As a result, various dimensions of a dialogically-reflexive communication are proposed against the backdrop of future societal pathways towards sustainability, reflecting the diversity, dynamics and self-organization – all featuring the liaison between science and politics on an organizational basis.

Hybrid Energy Governance

This Article develops a novel theory of energy governance and uses it to assess how institutional innovation can help meet critical challenges. Energy law is substantively complex and deeply fragmented. Each energy sector - including fuel extraction and pipelines, electricity generation and transmission, and transportation - has its own legal regime and federalism approach; confusion often exists at moments of crisis about how much authority federal, state, and local regulators have in these areas. The complexity and fragmentation of energy law are particularly problematic because the energy system faces major transitions due to emerging technology, more unpredictable and extreme weather events, and public pressure for 'cleaner' energy. Regulators struggle to: manage the risks of hydraulic fracturing and deepwater drilling, upgrade our aging electricity grid, and integrate renewable energy sources onto that grid and into electricity markets. Building from our prior work arguing for a dynamic, comprehensive approach to federalism in energy law, this Article proposes a governance model to address modern energy challenges. The Article focuses on the potential of institutions that are 'hybrid' by virtue of including public and private actors from several governance levels, and enabling important interactions among them. Grounding its approach in interdisciplinary governance theory, it argues that these institutions have characteristics that could address structural barriers - such as inadequate, divided regulatory authority, and the complexities of including key private actors in energy decision making - to substantive progress. After introducing its new conceptual model, the Article examines several hybrid institutions with substantial regional components that are working to address the three core substantive energy challenges identified here. It analyzes their progress in meeting these challenges, and how their hybrid governance approach is assisting them in doing so.