Agency Approach Research Articles

Democratisation in Southern Europe: a contingent or inevitable process?

ABSTRACT Debates on democratisation often struggle to reconcile structural and agency approaches. Structural explanations highlight factors like economic development, natural resources, inequality, and international power shifts. Agency-based explanations focus on the choices of political actors, including elites and social movements, and their interactions leading to democracy. This study compares Greece, Portugal, and Spain, harmonising these perspectives. Structural and agency forces are not contradictory when temporal scope conditions are clearly defined. Despite differing democratisation paths, Southern European countries experienced rapid modernisation, and political, social, and economic convergence during the consolidation phase. Modernisation favoured liberal democracy and democratic consolidation through varied events and actor combinations. Our analysis underscores the importance of considering both structural and agency-based factors in understanding democratisation processes.

Towards a comprehensive methodology for ecotoxicological assessment: Prioritizing plant protection products for mixture testing in edge-of-field surface waterbodies

Pesticide applications in agriculture result in complex mixtures of Plant Protection Products (PPPs) in the environment. The ecotoxicological effects of these mixtures can occur at concentrations considered safe for individual chemicals, indicating potential risks underestimated by current regulatory assessments focused on individual active ingredients. To address this challenge, our study introduces a methodology for identifying priority PPPs for formulating mixtures, enabling further ecotoxicological testing in water and sediment compartments of edge-of-field surface water bodies, targeting pelagic and benthic organisms. This methodology was primarily based on the actual quantification of PPPs present in these compartments from selected case study sites (CSSs) in Europe and Argentina (11 and 4 for water and sediments, respectively). A conceptual framework was developed that discriminates and selects concerning PPPs based on their individual risk quotient and frequency of occurrence in each CSS, drawing upon two EU regulatory risk assessment approaches, i.e., the general approach under REACH for any environmental contaminant of concern – the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) approach; and that specifically focusing on PPPs – the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) approach. Irrespective of whether the focus is on water or sediments, the study revealed disparities in PPP rankings depending on the approach used to identify PPPs of concern, with the ECHA approach being more conservative than the EFSA approach. Despite this, the EFSA approach follows a more standardized assessment factor definition strategy, potentially allowing avoidance of risk overestimation, as well as resulting in a more balanced representation of different PPP classes for subsequent mixtures testing. Overall, the methodological development reported herein, along with the inconsistencies found when comparing different regulatory approaches to assess the risk of environmental contaminants, highlight the need for further discussion on the most appropriate directions towards the standardization of the regulatory risk assessment of PPP mixtures.

Rethinking Corporate Governance: A Comparison of Agency, Stakeholder, and Cognitive Approaches

This article analyzes three main theories of corporate governance: agency theory, partnership theory and cognitive theory. Agency theory focuses on control mechanisms designed to mitigate conflicts of interest between owners and managers. In response to the limitations of this approach, partnership theory broadens the perspective by taking into account a wider set of stakeholders, while emphasizing the need for ethical and collaborative governance. Cognitive theory, meanwhile, emphasizes the importance of learning and innovation in creating value within organizations. The article provides a comparative analysis of these three theories, identifying their convergences and divergences, as well as their relevance to current governance practices. This reflection shows that these theories, far from being mutually exclusive, offer complementary perspectives for developing more inclusive governance mechanisms, capable of responding to contemporary challenges while integrating the economic, social and cognitive dimensions of organizational performance.

University leadership within the neoliberal agenda: Reframing the landscape through a principled leadership approach

This article emerged from a doctoral study that explored Nova Scotia university leaders’ leadership beliefs and values, and change agency approaches. “Principled leadership” was conceptualized as an expansion of authentic leadership theory and involved – authenticity (identity), spirituality, and love (an ethic of care). Principled leadership was examined as a possible approach which could facilitate successful change agency. The leader-participants included university presidents, vice-presidents, directors, and deans. A key finding was that leaders were operating within a conceptualization of authenticity. They held honesty, integrity, and trust as critical to their change agency. Another finding was that principled leadership offered an antidote to the depredations on positive leadership resulting from neoliberalism that has seriously impacted Canadian higher education. This study raised questions surrounding the nature of authentic leadership and identity; that is, the core of authenticity is knowing oneself and being true to one’s own values, but what if a leader has “drunk the Kool-Aid of neoliberalism” thereby truly believes that their top-down, autocratic (or destructive leadership) approach was ‘efficient’ (a neoliberal tenet) and crucial to organizational effectiveness and change agency. Can they still be considered authentic leaders? Thus, this study indicated that principled leadership was a useful expansion of Avolio and his colleagues’ authentic leadership theory.

Combating Terrorism in Kenya

The adoption of a multi-agency approach in combating terrorism in Kenya has been praised as transformative. Despite this positive assessment, the motivation behind this adoption by security actors remain unclear. This article employs a descriptive cross-sectional research design to explore the determinants that led to the implementation of the multi-agency strategy in the fight against terrorism. Data were collected through questionnaires and interview guides, from a sample of 306 participants drawn from Kenya’s disciplined forces who are tasked with the national security. The findings reveal that the decision to adopt a multi-agency approach was significantly influenced by the need to leverage the unique capabilities of each security agency, the documented successes of similar approaches globally, and the necessity to synchronize operations among Kenya’s diverse security agencies. The research study concludes that the relative strengths of each security agency and the imperative for operational synergy were key factors driving the adoption of the multi- agency approach in Kenya's counter-terrorism efforts.

Economic policy uncertainty and capital structure in Europe: an agency approach

Motivated by the unprecedented levels of economic policy uncertainty (EPU) recently experienced in Europe, we study how EPU affects capital structure and whether cultural, institutional, and financial conditions and corporate diversification moderate this relationship in a sample of 3175 firms from eleven European countries. Firstly, our results indicate that financial leverage is positively related to EPU, with this relationship being moderated by uncertainty avoidance, institutional quality, and financial development. Secondly, corporate debt is positively related to corporate diversification. This relationship is stronger for unrelated than for related diversification. In addition to the direct effect, both types of diversification indirectly moderate the positive influence of EPU on leverage, with this effect being stronger for unrelated diversification. Our results show that debt and uncertainty avoidance, institutional quality, and financial development work as substitute mechanisms to alleviate the agency costs caused by EPU and that corporate diversification reduces the informational gap between firm insiders and outside investors exacerbated by EPU.

Have Chinese women's gender attitudes become more conservative? A study using an agency approach

Have Chinese women's gender attitudes become more conservative? A study using an agency approach

Universities as catalysts of change in locked-in and vulnerable resource-based regions of the Global South

ABSTRACT This paper explores the contribution of universities to regional development and innovation in locked-in and vulnerable resource-based regions of the Global South. Building on a regional change agency approach, we identify the combination of key factors and context preconditions for universities to successfully fulfil their local engagement role in a particularly challenging environment. To do so, we use a comparative case study of two mining regions in Peru. Our results reveal that the prevalence of a climate of conflict and the lack of an innovation culture in the regional ecosystem are important challenges, while strategic leadership and institutional capacities are central elements for universities to fulfil their role as transformative agents.

Building equity into public park and recreation service investment: A review of public agency approaches

In recent decades, academic and professional research has increased understanding of the importance of city and landscape planners engaging with social and environmental justice issues, including contemporary inequities inherent in the planning, distribution, use, and access of public green and open spaces. However, there is a gap between this research centering equity and the planning, development, and implementation rate demonstrated by public agencies. In this article, we examine examples of emerging practice in the public park and recreation sector to understand the strategies and approaches public agencies are taking to provide equitable park and recreation systems. Our research identifies and analyzes 17 examples of North American public park and open space management agencies using equity-based planning frameworks to prioritize park investment and resource distribution. Equity-focused resource analysis is distinct because while it assesses budget and project-based funding distributions, it further incorporates assessments of historical allocations to understand better areas of under-investment and the evolving needs of different communities. As economic inequities become more pronounced, local governments, and other public institutions providing services to populations, are important in helping communities navigate changes. Our findings support the ongoing advancement of equity-driven planning and implementation for public park and recreation agencies by providing practical information on existing approaches to redress the impact of unfair patterns of under-investment.

The Importance of Institutional Arrangement to Safeguard Maritime Security and Safety in Indonesia: The Case of Marine Security and Safety Agency

Introduction: Multiple agencies approach has been adopted by the Indonesian government to ensure maritime security and safety. The involvement of multiple actors potentially leads to overlapping authorities and an uncoordinated operation. For stakeholders at sea, such approach is inefficient, ineffective and creates confusion. The situation needs to be addressed to make more a coordinated, efficient, and effective method. This paper tries to address such an issue through institutional law lens.Purposes of the Research: This paper aims to answer three important questions (1) How is the enforcement of security and safety at sea so far? (2) What are the implications as the many institutions involved in the enforcement of safety and security at sea? and (3) What kind of institutional arrangements to be made in the future so that law enforcement at sea becomes effective and efficient?.Methods of the Research: This study utilizes a normative legal approach. It exercises legal doctrines, relevant laws and regulations. It is also suplemented by relevant literatures, books, journals, and media coverages.Results of the Research: This paper finds that the enforcement of security and safety at sea adopts multi agencies where many institutions involved in maintaining security and safety at sea. The fact that multiple institutions simultaniously participate in law enforcement at sea, potentially create overlapping and lack of coordination among them. This also creates confusion and disadvantage to the stakeholders. Therefore, it is necessary to reorganize the current institutional arrangements to minimize the problems on the ground.

The Importance of Institutional Arrangement to Safeguard Maritime Security and Safety in Indonesia: The Case of Marine Security and Safety Agency

Introduction: Multiple agencies approach has been adopted by the Indonesian government to ensure maritime security and safety. The involvement of multiple actors potentially leads to overlapping authorities and an uncoordinated operation. For stakeholders at sea, such approach is inefficient, ineffective and creates confusion. The situation needs to be addressed to make more a coordinated, efficient, and effective method. This paper tries to address such an issue through institutional law lens.Purposes of the Research: This paper aims to answer three important questions (1) How is the enforcement of security and safety at sea so far? (2) What are the implications as the many institutions involved in the enforcement of safety and security at sea? and (3) What kind of institutional arrangements to be made in the future so that law enforcement at sea becomes effective and efficient?.Methods of the Research: This study utilizes a normative legal approach. It exercises legal doctrines, relevant laws and regulations. It is also suplemented by relevant literatures, books, journals, and media coverages.Results of the Research: This paper finds that the enforcement of security and safety at sea adopts multi agencies where many institutions involved in maintaining security and safety at sea. The fact that multiple institutions simultaniously participate in law enforcement at sea, potentially create overlapping and lack of coordination among them. This also creates confusion and disadvantage to the stakeholders. Therefore, it is necessary to reorganize the current institutional arrangements to minimize the problems on the ground.

The price of regionalisation: Discursive dominance and stakeholders coalitions in the Northern Adriatic Sea fishery governance arrangement

The regionalisation process promoted by the EU’s Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) enabled the formulation of a new governance arrangement at the sub-national regional level of the Northern Adriatic Sea (NAS). Given the potential for dominating narratives to foster simplified solutions for fishery management, the article sought to analyse discourse formations across Italian Regional Fishery Departments (RFDs) of the NAS. A discourse analysis based on the Discursive Agency Approach (DAA) delineated the discursive strategies, while a weak vs strong sustainability narrative was adopted to broadly group stakeholders into discourse coalitions. The results showed the presence of a dominating narrative in RFD settings, prioritising the economic growth of the fishery sector- particularly the trawling industry- over current environmental concerns. The study points to a possibly increasing dominance of weak sustainability narratives in the Italian NAS and invites for stakeholders' representation to significantly broaden and diversify, enabling the development of multifaceted solutions to the NAS crisis.

Divergences among ESG rating systems: Evidence from financial indexes

<p style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif; color: black;">This paper specifically underscores the disparities among various ESG rating systems in China, highlighting their varied interpretations and emphasis on corporate financial factors. Analyzing data on Chinese listed firms from 2009-2022, we observe that while company size and leverage ratio uniformly correlate with ESG scores across rating agencies such as Bloomberg, Huazheng, Wind, and Hexun, the influence of factors like return on assets, cash flow, company age, and Tobin's Q is markedly inconsistent among these agencies. For instance, while operational cash flow and company age are positively associated with ESG ratings from Bloomberg, Huazheng, and Wind, they hold an inverse relationship with Hexun's ratings. This divergence underscores the unique data collection, weighting, and evaluation methodologies employed by each rating system. The study emphasizes the criticality of comprehending the nuances of each rating agency's approach when interpreting ESG scores and crafting ESG strategies. Moreover, it advocates for integrating insights from multiple rating systems to cater to the diverse expectations of stakeholders.</span></p>

Understanding the Relation Between Agency and Communion and Victim Impact Statements

Victim impact statements (VIS) have been widely introduced across different jurisdictions. Although early research examined the impact of VIS on sentencing outcomes, more recently researchers have focussed on their effects on victim posttraumatic stress symptoms. This article offers a different framework to this therapeutic approach. Instead, we emphasize that victims’ affective experience can be conceptualized using the Big Two Framework of agency and communion. Victims suffer damage to their sense of agency—status, respect, and the like—and communion—their experiences of connectedness to others. VIS could provide an opportunity to restore these orientations to self and others. Our research offers an empirical investigation into this framework. Victims who delivered an oral VIS in a Dutch criminal court completed an online survey on their experiences (N = 118). In addition, we conducted in-depth interviews to enrich the information from the survey (N = 24). The results show that both agency and communion-related aspects are present when victims talk about their experiences. Victims, for instance, mention feeling stronger—agency and also to be able to help others—communion. The agency aspect of being heard is apparent both in the survey the interview results. These findings suggest that both agency and communion seem to play a role in the effects of delivering a VIS. Implications of the agency and communion approach are discussed.

Distributed agency in HRI-an exploratory study of a narrative robot design.

We explore an alternative approach to the design of robots that deviates from the common envisionment of having one unified agent. What if robots are depicted as an agentic ensemble where agency is distributed over different components? In the project presented here, we investigate the potential contributions of this approach to creating entertaining and joyful human-robot interaction (HRI), which also remains comprehensible to human observers. We built a service robot-which takes care of plants as a Plant-Watering Robot (PWR)-that appears as a small ship controlled by a robotic captain accompanied by kinetic elements. The goal of this narrative design, which utilizes a distributed agency approach, is to make the robot entertaining to watch and foster its acceptance. We discuss the robot's design rationale and present observations from an exploratory study in two contrastive settings, on a university campus and in a care home for people with dementia, using a qualitative video-based approach for analysis. Our observations indicate that such a design has potential regarding the attraction, acceptance, and joyfulness it can evoke. We discuss aspects of this design approach regarding the field of elderly care, limitations of our study, and identify potential fields of use and further scopes for studies.

Applying the approach of narrative agency

Abstract In this article, we discuss a dialogue between narrative theory, reading group practices, and analysis of reading group participants’ experiences. Hanna Meretoja’s theory of narrative agency has informed us in developing a new reading group model that aims to enhance the participants’ narrative agency, and, in turn, the analysis of the reading group experiences provides us with new knowledge on the reading group model, as well as on the theoretical approach. We explore narrative agency analysis as a tool to analyze interviews, and our analysis of three participants’ experiences illustrates how narrative agency can manifest itself in various forms. It also demonstrates that the enhanced ability to navigate narrative environments can be highly meaningful on a personal level. The article suggests that, despite its challenges, this kind of research approach, combining theory and practice, enriches and expands the possibilities of literary studies.

Synergistic Integration of Large Language Models and Cognitive Architectures for Robust AI: An Exploratory Analysis

This paper explores the integration of two AI subdisciplines employed in the development of artificial agents that exhibit intelligent behavior: Large Language Models (LLMs) and Cognitive Architectures (CAs). We present three integration approaches, each grounded in theoretical models and supported by preliminary empirical evidence. The modular approach, which introduces four models with varying degrees of integration, makes use of chain-of-thought prompting, and draws inspiration from augmented LLMs, the Common Model of Cognition, and the simulation theory of cognition. The agency approach, motivated by the Society of Mind theory and the LIDA cognitive architecture, proposes the formation of agent collections that interact at micro and macro cognitive levels, driven by either LLMs or symbolic components. The neuro-symbolic approach, which takes inspiration from the CLARION cognitive architecture, proposes a model where bottom-up learning extracts symbolic representations from an LLM layer and top-down guidance utilizes symbolic representations to direct prompt engineering in the LLM layer. These approaches aim to harness the strengths of both LLMs and CAs, while mitigating their weaknesses, thereby advancing the development of more robust AI systems. We discuss the tradeoffs and challenges associated with each approach.

Economic Policy Uncertainty and Capital Structure in Europe: an Agency Approach

Economic Policy Uncertainty and Capital Structure in Europe: an Agency Approach

UAV avionics safety, certification, accidents, redundancy, integrity, and reliability: a comprehensive review and future trends

This paper underscores the significance of safety and reliability in the realm of unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) technologies, and how regulations play a pivotal role in ensuring their responsible use. We have analyzed safety incidents and trends both in Canada and globally, noting a decline in incidents attributed to enhanced regulations. Our comparative analysis of different UAV technologies identified batteries as the most reliable power supply, Global Navigation Satellite System as the most effective navigation system, and light detection and ranging as the optimal optical sensor due to regulatory compliance and system redundancies. We also examined the regulatory framework in Canada, comparing it with the risk-based approach of the European Union Aviation Safety Agency and the efforts of Joint Authorities for Rule-making on Unmanned Systems towards global harmonization. Furthermore, we highlighted emerging trends in automation and flight control technologies, with a focus on European regulations shaping UAV automation trends. In conclusion, by adhering to best practices from other regulatory bodies, embracing emerging trends, and adopting a risk-based approach, Canada can promote the growth of the UAV industry while ensuring safety and reliability in UAV technologies.

Blesser relationships among orphaned adolescent girls in contexts of poverty and gender inequality in South African townships.

The term blesser has become part of South Africa's contemporary lexicon, replacing the older terminology of 'sugar daddy.' While much recent literature has focused on the blesser phenomenon, the voices of orphaned adolescent girls on their entanglement in blesser relationships have had insufficient attention. Using the theory of gender and power as an analytical lens, this qualitative study analyses the visual and textual data generated by orphaned adolescent girls on their relationships with blessers. To generate data, the participants used photovoice to represent their relationships with older male sexual partners in their resource-poor South African township neighbourhoods. Our analysis reveals a set of factors that render orphaned adolescent girls vulnerable to age-disparate relationships, such as the structural dimensions of their lives, including their status as orphaned girls, heteropatriarchy, age-based hierarchies, and poverty in their households and communities. On the other hand, our analysis explores the less understood area of the relative agency, intentionality, and proactive approach that orphaned girls take to initiating and negotiating blesser relationships. The findings have implications for further research that will expand our understanding of girls' agency-and the structural limits to that agency-in adverse socio-cultural circumstances. Such research holds potential for interventions that might enable orphaned girls to better advocate for themselves in the context of unequal power relations.