Stakeholder Agendas Research Articles

When decision-making processes fail: an argument for robust climate adaptation planning in the face of uncertainty

Adverse climate-related pressures and shocks pose uncertain risks to communities and society at large. These uncertainties require strategies that will perform well regardless of circumstances, necessitating robust rather than optimal planning strategies. Robust planning requires reliable up-to-date information. The data available regarding regional risk, however, especially in developing countries, are often insecure, inadequate, or nonexistent. In addition to this, climate change poses deep uncertainty in when, where, and how extreme a given climate-related pressure or shock will occur. In order to include the full breadth of perspectives and consider all possible future scenarios, robust strategies require input from myriad affected stakeholders. Incorporating multiple perspectives, collecting and analyzing risk-related information and selecting a robust strategy, calls for substantial planning and management. When a pressure or shock occurs, without ex-ante action promoting best practices for resilience, governance structures often fail, leading to actions that may favor a single stakeholder agenda and avoidable losses. In contrast, this paper will provide a practical framework for collecting relevant information at the local level, using that information to analyze related risk, and creating robust strategies that incorporate and promote resilience.

Non-Experimental Comparative Effectiveness Research: How to Plan and Conduct a Good Study

Knowledge about the benefit-to-harm balance of alternative treatment options is central to high-quality patient care. In contrast to the traditional hierarchy of evidence, led by randomized designs, the emerging consensus is to move away from judging a study’s validity based only on randomization. Ethical, practical, and financial considerations dictate that most epidemiologic research be non-experimental. That includes studies of effectiveness and safety of treatments. We provide a non-technical overview of essential prerequisites for high-quality comparative effectiveness research from the standpoint of clinical epidemiology, keeping in mind potentially divergent agendas of investigators and other stakeholders. We discuss the essentials of study planning, implementation, and publication of results. Our focus is on non-experimental studies that generate evidence addressing different dimensions of harm–benefit profiles of therapies. Bias minimization strategies, transparency, and independence in reporting are the guiding principles of comparative effectiveness research, whose ultimate goal is to improve patient care and public health.

The changing role of NGOs in Mexican small-scale fisheries: From environmental conservation to multi-scale governance

Multi-scale governance has been widely recommended for effective marine resource management. This approach suggests collective decision-making, the devolution of some rights and responsibilities to various entities, co-production of knowledge, coupling governance and ecological scales, among other elements. Here, the elements of multi-scale governance of Mexican small-scale fisheries (SSF) and the contribution of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to this approach are described. Three management processes were selected for the analysis: (1) the development of the Fisheries Management Plan (FMP) for the swimming crab fishery; (2) the establishment of fishing refugia in the Punta San Cosme to Punta Coyote Corridor; and (3) the implementation of catch shares in the Gulf corvina fishery. The results suggest that NGOs are contributing to most of the key attributes for multi-scale fisheries governance. Given the NGOs׳ agenda shift in the Gulf of California region, from advocacy for environmental conservation to participation in sustainable management, there has been a wider promotion and acceptance of NGOs within governance related processes in fisheries management. In order to clarify alignments with other stakeholder agendas, as well as to continue building trust, NGOs need to make their governance agenda explicit. This work provides insights on how NGOs can contribute to multi-scale governance and a framework for the evaluation of management processes and the contribution of different stakeholders to multi-scale governance, which can be applied to any management process.

Heading towards a multimodal city of the future?

Abstract In redesigning city infrastructure to become sustainable and future-oriented, critical city subsystems, such as the urban mobility system, present a serious challenge. In order to avoid regime stalemates and path dependency, substantial changes to the urban mobility systems are required to limit economic, ecological, population and institutional constraints. We argue that the socio-technical system of multimodal mobility has the potential to solve some of today's urban mobility challenges. Multimodal mobility combines both private and public transport modes, thereby capitalizing on the benefits of various systems. Realizing that mobility systems are non-monolithic and transitions require interdisciplinary analyses, we adopt a multi-level perspective with actors across different fields. This paper aims to guide cities in developing a long-term future vision of urban mobility systems in Germany while drawing on considerations of transition theory. Our comprehensive approach, conceptualized through a strategic issue management framework, draws on empirical evidence from three parallel Delphi studies and several focus group workshops to present strategic implications to firms, public authorities, and customers. Among others, the strategy agenda for stakeholders must coordinate efforts to utilize system strengths, advance intelligent transport systems, diversify the portfolio of public and private financing, change business models, and create a renaissance of civil participation.

Application of the Destination Sustainability Framework to explore the drivers of vulnerability and resilience in Thailand following the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami

The impact of the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami on multiple tourism destinations was a striking reminder of the vulnerability of tourism-dependent destination communities to shocks and stressors. However, the causal drivers of destination vulnerability remain under-researched. Furthermore, there are few studies that systematically apply and test the usefulness of new theoretical frameworks in assessing real-world problems like vulnerability to natural hazards. This crucial step in social theory development is often overlooked. In this paper we redress these fundamental gaps by “operationalising” the new Destination Sustainability Framework (DSF). The DSF is used to guide a case study-based comparative destination vulnerability assessment (DVA) of the tsunami-affected destinations of Khao Lak, Patong and Phi Phi Don in Thailand to better understand destination vulnerability and its evolution in different places and developmental contexts. The findings indicate that destination vulnerability is created and perpetuated by a combination of multiple, dynamic and interacting factors, including geographical exposure, destination-specific development characteristics, social structures and governance processes. Underlying these factors and processes are competing stakeholder agendas and actions, historically-embedded cultural norms, institutional preferences and power structures that entrench and perpetuate unequal access to resources, all of which play out at multiple scales of social organisation over time.

Reputational challenges for business schools: a contextual perspective

PurposeThe dominant variance theory approaches to researching business school reputations are based on a positivistic hypothetico‐deductive research methodology and do not adequately take into account either the different levels and types of contexts in which business schools operate or the diversity of stakeholder interests. The aim of this paper is to propose a more relevant contextualised framework for analysing the reputation of business schools that takes cognisance of the national business systems, industry/sector, university and relational contexts of the different stakeholders involved in socially constructing and enacting business school reputations. The authors also seek to explore the tensions between these often competing or unaligned agendas of stakeholders in business schools.Design/methodology/approachThis is a conceptual paper that proposes a contextualised framework for analysing the reputation of business schools. It reviews the current state of theory on business schools’ reputations, analyses their weaknesses and potential research gaps, and proposes an alternative model to the dominant universalistic positivism in understanding business school reputations.FindingsThe authors conclude that the variance theory underpinning of current research does not take into account sufficiently either the diversity of stakeholder interests or the contexts in which business schools operate. Thus, the authors propose an alternative model to the dominant universalistic positivism in understanding business school reputations. This new model is based on four levels of context: national, industry, university and relational, and acknowledges that different stakeholders might have a dominant voice at each of these levels.Originality/valueThe authors attempt to fill a gap in the existing literature on business school reputations, and make a contribution to theory of reputation management.

Stakeholder Engagement: Achieving Sustainability in the Construction Sector

Achieving sustainability-related targets in construction projects is increasingly becoming a key performance driver. Yet sustainability is a complex concept in projects and there are many diverse stakeholders. Some stakeholders are generally recognized as important, i.e., the client and main contractor, yet there are others not always perceived as such and whose absence from the decision-making processes may result in a failure to address sustainability issues. Hence there is a need for a systematic approach to engage with stakeholders with high salience in relation to sustainability. This paper reports the results of an exploratory study involving interviews with construction project practitioners that are involved in sustainability in some way. Data were collected from the practitioners in terms of the processes for engaging with stakeholders to deliver sustainability. The data suggests six steps to a stakeholder engagement process: (i) identification; (ii) relating stakeholders to different sustainability-related targets; (iii) prioritization; (iv) managing; (v) measuring performance; and (vi) putting targets into action. The results suggest that understanding the different sustainability agendas of stakeholders and measuring their performance using key performance indicators are important stages to be emphasized in any stakeholder engagement process to achieve sustainability-related goals.

Online privacy concerns and legal assurance: A user perspective

Since the emergence of the Internet and Social Media, privacy concerns and need for regulation in this area have been a frequent subject on the agenda of numerous stakeholders and policy-makers worldwide. Contributing to this debate, this paper builds on the responses of 553 Internet users to uncover users’ current privacy concerns and their attitudes towards legal assurances in this context. Our findings suggest that users have a complex attitude towards these issues. While they express strong concerns about privacy when asked directly, they often have difficulties formulating the exact nature of these concerns. In the Facebook context, Facebook itself is often mentioned as the primary source of threat, closely followed by marketing organizations. Users feel ill-protected by existing legal framework, especially when using Social Networking Sites. Reasons include common beliefs that the law is unable to address complexities of the Internet; local character of laws; possibilities to disregard the law, particularly since enforcement is difficult. Overall, positive changes in legal framework are desirable, with many respondents willing to pay more in taxes to ensure progress in this area.

Stakeholder Engagement: Achieving Sustainability in the Construction Sector

Achieving sustainability-related targets in construction projects is increasingly becoming a key performance driver. Yet sustainability is a complex concept in projects and there are many diverse stakeholders. Some stakeholders are generally recognized as important, i.e., the client and main contractor, yet there are others not always perceived as such and whose absence from the decision-making processes may result in a failure to address sustainability issues. Hence there is a need for a systematic approach to engage with stakeholders with high salience in relation to sustainability. This paper reports the results of an exploratory study involving interviews with construction project practitioners that are involved in sustainability in some way. Data were collected from the practitioners in terms of the processes for engaging with stakeholders to deliver sustainability. The data suggests six steps to a stakeholder engagement process: (i) identification; (ii) relating stakeholders to different sustainability-related targets; (iii) prioritization; (iv) managing; (v) measuring performance; and (vi) putting targets into action. The results suggest that understanding the different sustainability agendas of stakeholders and measuring their performance using key performance indicators are important stages to be emphasized in any stakeholder engagement process to achieve sustainability-related goals.

Designing for multiple stakeholder interests within the humanitarian market: the case of off-grid energy devices

A 'humanitarian market' for off–grid renewable energy technologies for displaced populations in remote areas has emerged. Within this market, there are multiple stakeholder agendas. End–user needs and sustainable development goals are currently not considered through the customer–enterprise relationship and the applied product and service design process. Challenges inherent in the attempt to satisfy multiple stakeholder interests are complicated by short–term planning by humanitarian funding agencies. These challenges have led to poor technical performance, accountability issues and increased mistrust between stakeholders. Enterprises looking for sustainable and predictable markets in the humanitarian relief context will benefit from reflecting upon and communicating their role in this market to organisations and end–users. Including a more participatory development approach may ensure progress towards a more 'sustainable' and 'real needs'–based market, with products that take long–term considerations into account.

Von politischen Grabenkämpfen zur kooperativen Planung

The city of Zurich's shape has changed dramatically during the last two decades. In the late 1970s and in the 1980s, such a transformation seemed impossible due to political polarisation and different urban development agendas of Zurich's important stakeholders – i.e. the local government, private investors and land owners. This article sheds light on the political transformation processes that took place in the 1990s, using urban regime theory. Urban regimes are defined as a stable and longstanding form of cooperation between the most important political and private actors, which enables them to draw a common agenda and to use common resources. The emergence of such an urban regime had a crucial impact on the development processes in Zurich, because it has been able to bridge the different interests of the relevant political and private stakeholders. The result was a much more coherent and stable development agenda and a massive development of new construction projects. The most important factors why such a cooperation scheme could be established have been the abandoning of the industrial areas in the late 1980s; the globalisation processes that made a new city development strategy necessary; the mutual need for long-term security in planning; but also the new established policy goals of the social democratic party and its leaders in the city government. English Title: Paradigm change in urban development policy – towards an urban regime in Zurich?

Conservation in Context: A Comparison of Conservation Perspectives in a Mexican Protected Area

The conservation of biodiversity in protected areas depends on the interests and agendas of stakeholders involved in the planning and enforcing of management actions. The challenge, therefore, has been to identify and include the perspectives of multiple participants important to local conservation. This paper describes the social context in which local conservation is conducted in a natural protected area in Yucatan, Mexico. In particular, it examines the agreement and expectations among local stakeholders on the main goals the reserve should achieve. Through participatory observation and semi-structured interviews, we analyzed the perceptions on conservation of the five groups relevant to the area management: 1) local people; 2) conservation government agency; 3) scientists; 4) non-governmental organization, and 5) a tourist agency. All actors agreed that the protected area should fulfill two main goals: i) to conserve biodiversity and, ii) to improve local welfare and development. In general, ecotourism is perceived as the best option for protecting the forest and promoting local development. Traditional agriculture, on the other hand, is perceived as the main conservation threat, but recognized as a crucial component of local wellbeing. We discuss these results in the context of the Yucatan Peninsula.

The Future of Stakeholder Management Theory: A Temporal Perspective

We propose adding a temporal dimension to stakeholder management theory, and assess the implications thereof for firm-level competitive advantage. We argue that a firm’s competitive advantage fundamentally depends on its capacity for stakeholder management related, transformational adaptation over time. Our new temporal stakeholder management approach builds upon insights from both the resource-based view (RBV) in strategic management and institutional theory. Stakeholder agendas and their relative salience to the firm evolve over time, a phenomenon well understood in the literature, and requiring what we call level 1 adaptation. However, the dominant direction of stakeholder pressures can also change, namely, from supporting resource heterogeneity at the firm level to fostering industry homogeneity, and vice versa. When dominant stakeholder pressures shift from supporting heterogeneity towards stimulating homogeneity in industry, the firm must engage in level 2 or transformational adaptation. Stakeholders typically provide valuable resources to the firm in an early stage. Without these resources, which foster heterogeneity (in line with RBV thinking), the firm would not exist. At a later stage, stakeholders also contribute to inter-firm homogeneity via isomorphism pressures (in line with institutional theory thinking). Adding a temporal dimension to stakeholder management theory has far reaching implications for this theory’s practical relevance to senior level management in business.

Fresh insights into British apprenticeship schemes

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to show how research that is approached from multiple perspectives, using multiple methods, can help to illuminate the complex and contested nature of the purpose and practice of apprenticeship schemes in England. The author contends that understanding the various participants involved in the schemes helps to reveal how policy at the macro level is adapted at the micro level to suit different groups. The author argues that the usefulness in such an approach provides a greater understanding of the plurality of interests and needs at play within the scheme, opening up the apprenticeship scheme agenda to allow divergent voices to be heard.Design/methodology/approachThis is a qualitative empirical paper which adopts a multi‐perspective, multi‐method approach.FindingsThe paper highlights a number of areas of contention between different stakeholders involved in the apprenticeship scheme that could affect the success of these schemes.Originality/valueThe author's aim is to demonstrate the use of a multi‐perspective, multi‐method approach as a way to generate research which takes into account the different experiences and agenda of stakeholders participating in apprenticeship schemes. It is envisaged that the paper will be of interest to readers interested in research methods and for those conducting research on young workers.

Sleep disturbances and fatigue: independent predictors of sickness absence? A prospective study among 6538 employees

Although sleep disturbances and fatigue are common conditions, frequently shown to be associated with sickness absence, only a few studies have prospectively investigated their independent effects on sickness absence, while adjusting for depressive symptoms. This study aims (i) to examine whether sleep disturbances and fatigue are independently related to the onset of register-based sickness absence of ≥ 3 weeks during a 1-year follow-up in a representative sample of the Danish workforce and (ii) to determine if possible associations are gender-specific. Data were used from the Danish Work Environment Cohort Study and linked with sickness absence data from the Danish National Register of Social Transfer Payments. A total of 6538 employees, 3178 men and 3360 women, were included in the analyses. Sleep disturbances predicted risk of sickness absence after adjustment for covariates, but lost statistical significance after further adjustment for depressive symptoms. Fatigue among men predicted risk of sickness absence [Hazard ratio (HR) = 1.25, 95% confidence intervals (CI) 1.00-1.56] after adjustment for covariates, depressive symptoms and sleep disturbances. Sleep disturbances in both genders and fatigue in women did not predict sickness absence after depressive symptoms were taken into account. In men, fatigue was significantly related to future sickness absence, also when adjusted for depressive symptoms and sleep disturbances. Further prospective studies are needed to explore the pathways from fatigue to sickness absence in more detail. The study suggests that early detection and treatment of fatigue in men should be high on the stakeholder's agenda.

Guanaco management by pastoralists in the Southern Andes

As with most wild ungulates, guanacos (Lama guanicoe) overlap their range with domestic livestock resulting in a conflict for the use of rangelands between local livelihoods and conservation. This article explores a multiple-objective project that was set up in the La Payunia Provincial Reserve (Mendoza, Argentina) in order to address conservation of a migratory population of guanacos; desertification processes; and poverty alleviation. This study analyses the potential for guanaco use and management by a low-income Cooperative, the socio-economic impacts derived from the use, and the challenges facing the experience. The Cooperative Payún Matrú was formed in 2005 mainly by local goat herders with a subsistence economy, thus providing a unique example where the beneficiaries of guanaco use are a low-income community. The project was successful in articulating the agendas of several stakeholders. A model for guanaco use under high animal welfare standards was developed as well as an alternative source of income for local people. The case study illustrates how a conflict over the use of grassland between domestic livestock and a wild species could be turned into an opportunity for economic diversification for pastoralists. Lessons are drawn that could contribute to policy decisions as well as sustainable use programmes for other wildlife species.

Academic entrepreneurship, entrepreneurial universities and biotechnology

There are various definitions of an entrepreneurial university, yet there is a lack of agreement about its core components. This article defines the five key characteristics of an entrepreneurial university based on examples of successful bio-clusters in the United States and Europe, and suggests an agenda for stakeholders.

Framing environmental sustainability challenges for research and innovation in European policy agendas

Recent EU policy has linked research agendas with societal challenges, which has resulted in an increased emphasis on the need for exchange of knowledge between research and non-research actors, especially civil society organisations. Concurrent with this, has been a call for democratic accountability of research agendas and science that addresses Grand Societal Challenges. The challenge of environmental sustainability features strongly in these discussions with an emphasis on global warming, the tightening of energy, water and food supplies, and the overarching goal of achieving an ‘eco-efficient economy’. However, this challenge can be defined in various ways, with different definitions orienting towards different solutions many of which we argue may be contradictory to the goal of environmental sustainability. In this commentary we illustrate how dominant research agendas are often orientated towards the partisan agendas of influential stakeholders, favouring myopic technological fixes and marginalising other civil society actors and critical insights from social science. Our main recommendations include a more dominant role for social sciences, involving civil society more actively in research agenda setting, increased communication, information sharing and capacity building, and increased interdisciplinarity.

Science for Trade-Offs Between Conflicting Interests in Future Forests

Forests deliver multiple ecosystem services to society. Management of forests must be able to deal with trade-offs when the delivery of different ecosystem services comes in conflict with each other. The research program Future Forests (http://www.futureforests.se) attempts to form a scientific basis for managing such trade-offs between conflicting interests in northern boreal forests. Some key characteristics of the research program are interdisciplinary and participatory research and a clear communication agenda for stakeholders. This paper gives a brief overview of the underlying ideas behind the program, and an introduction to the papers published in this Special Issue.

The Role of the Health Insurance Industry in Perpetuating Suboptimal Pain Management

Unlike pain practitioners, health care insurers in the United States are not expected to function according to a system of medical ethics. Rather, they are permitted to function under the business "ethic" of cost-containment and profitability. Despite calls for balancing the disparate agendas of stakeholders in pain management in a pluralistic system, the health insurance industry has continued to fail to take the needs of suffering chronic pain patients into consideration in developing and enacting their policies that ultimately dictate the quality and quantity of pain management services available to enrollees. This essay examined these self-serving strategies, which include failure to reimburse services and certain medications irrespective of their evidence-bases for clinical efficacy and cost-efficiency; "carving out" specific services from interdisciplinary treatment programs; and delaying and/or interrupting the provision of medically necessary treatment. Blatant and more subtle strategies utilized by insurers to achieve these ethically questionable goals are examined. Additionally, this essay addressed some of the insurance industry's efforts to delegitimize chronic pain and its treatment as a whole. The author concludes that the outlook for chronic pain sufferers is not particularly bright, until such time that a not-for-profit single-payer system replaces the current treatment/reimbursement paradigm.