Changes In National Systems Research Articles

The OECD as a Booster of National School Governance. The case of New Math in Sweden, 1950-1975

New Math was an international reform movement aimed at thorough changes in school mathematics with respect to both content and teaching methods. This movement started to gain influence in the 1950s, and in the 1960s several countries prepared and implemented their own New Math reforms. This movement not only attracted prominent mathematicians and psychologists but also garnered support from the Organization of Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). The New Math reforms are examples of how OECD supported thorough and broad changes in national systems of education. In most countries, however, the influence of New Math on syllabi began to fade by the 1970s. In this paper, I discuss how the New Math in Sweden reform boosted national governance and changed power relations between the teachers, textbook producers, and the national school administration. I also suggest that OECD continued to support this power structure through the testing enterprises associated with PISA.

INTEGRATION PROCESSES ON CIVIL SERVICE REFORM IN THE EURASIAN SPACE

The article studies the process of reforming the institute of civil service in the countries of the Eurasian space (e.g. Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan). The integration of national systems of public administration and, in particular, the civil service, is an important factor contributing to the implementation of the centripetal tendencies in the post-Soviet space. The research methodology is based on a combination of comparative legal analysis, historical retrospective method, normalization and scaling, structural-functional and system analysis. A comparison of the legal models of public service was made in research. The author puts forward the hypothesis that it is presence the relationship between the quantitative changes (for example, number of employees) of civil service and the dynamics of macroeconomic indicators (e.g. number of employed in the economy). In this regard were observed common trends. On materials of the statistical surveys were considered quantitative changes in national systems of civil service. The study of the socio-demographic characteristics of the public service (gender, age, profession) allowed to formulate conclusions about the general and specific trends in the reform of the civil service of the analyzed countries. A number of values were first calculated by the author. The work is intended to become the basis for a broad international research on the development of civil service, which is the central mechanism for implementation the integration in the post-Soviet space.

Role of independent supervisory board members in Central and Eastern European countries

The analysis of corporate governance referring to the changes in national systems, applied reforms and efficiency of control mechanisms is the focal point of academic discussion both in finance and management. The need for understanding and documenting the emergence of corporate governance systems proves to be even more crucial in the case of transition and developing economies. Emerging markets, on the one hand, offer a unique opportunity to observe the relations among worldwide reform pressure, regulatory role of the state and national institutions, shareholders emerging activism and corporate response towards standards of corporate governance. The article analyses the role and evolution of independent directors addressing the aspects of the definition, role and functions of independent directors on the board. In addition, the discussion refers to the corporate practice of independent directors’ role in Central and Eastern Europe and is followed by empirical analysis relation of directors’ presence and corporate performance on the sample of the 10 biggest companies from each of the countries: the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Russia.

Accounting for change in national systems of innovation: A friendly critique based on the U.S. case

This paper advances a friendly critique of the national systems of innovation approach and offers some suggestions for its future development. I argue that the approach has difficulty accounting for bounded change in national systems. I review three recent changes in the U.S. innovation system – the Internet boom and bust of the late 1990s and early 2000s, the response to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, and the acceleration of productivity growth since the mid-1990s – in order to assess the strengths and weaknesses of the framework in this respect. Future research might be enriched, at least in the case of large national innovation systems, by absorbing concepts developed in other strands of institutionalist literature, such as “intercurrence” and “embeddedness”.

Shareholder Value, Management Culture and Production Regimes in the Transformation of the German Chemical-Pharmaceutical Industry

One of the greatest points of controversy in the recent literature in political economy is the extent to which “shareholder value” oriented institutional investors are drivers of change in national systems of corporate governance. This article argues that the key question is how management cultures shape managerial responses to pressures for change from capital markets. Empirical evidence for this argument is provided through an examination of changes since the mid-1990s at the “Big Three” German integrated chemical/pharmaceutical companies: Hoechst, Bayer and BASF. Despite facing similar demands from shareholder-value oriented investors, management at the three companies have pursued quite different strategies. The end result, however, may be the same from a production regime perspective, that is, the long-run withdrawal of “Big Pharma” from Germany as a location for R&D due to a more favorable institutional framework in the US.

Shareholder Value, Management Culture and Production Regimes in the Transformation of the German Chemical-Pharmaceutical Industry

One of the greatest points of controversy in the recent literature in political economy is the extent to which shareholder value oriented institutional investors are drivers of change in national systems of corporate governance. This article argues that the key question is how management cultures shape managerial responses to pressures for change from capital markets. Empirical evidence for this argument is provided through an examination of changes since the mid-1990s at the Big Three German integrated chemical/pharmaceutical companies: Hoechst, Bayer and BASF. Despite facing similar demands from shareholder-value oriented investors, management at the three companies have pursued quite different strategies. The end result, however, may be the same from a production regime perspective, that is, the long-run withdrawal of Big Pharma from Germany as a location for R&D due to a more favorable institutional framework in the US.

Technologies embedded in nations? Genetic engineering and technological change in national systems of innovation

This work attempts to integrate questions posed by research on processes of technological change with that on the relative cohesiveness of national institutional economies, or national systems of innovation. Studying the processes behind the use of biotechnology-genetic engineering to make the pharmaceutical human growth hormone as occurred in Sweden and the United States-provides a rich comparative study. A historical understanding of specific science-based technologies provides possibilities to address more general models and theories about the nature of technological change in political Economics of nations.