Existing Governance Practices Research Articles

Policy capacity during COVID-19 in Asia: A systematic literature review.

COVID‐19 has revealed the policy capacity of some governance institutions, both resilience and vulnerability. Hence, this circumstance has demanded public administration scholars and practitioners to rethink the existing governance practices, particularly in making effective crisis‐related policies. This paper reviewed primary and secondary studies exploring the application of policy capacity competencies in facilitating COVID‐19 handling in Asia. In achieving so, we did a systematic literature review of relevant studies published between January and October 2020. Applying the agreed search term to several databases, we found 2541 studies, while merely 30 were included for review. Findings from the studies are predominantly closely linked to operational capacity (n = 21). Other studies are related to political and analytical capacity (n = 14 and 7, retrospectively). We found that there are some dilemmas and inadequacy of understanding concerning the role of features in certain capacities (such as technology use versus individual privacy, the paradox of trust and legitimacy, or centralisation versus decentralisation), particularly in the time of crisis, which is a calling for future research.

Revisiting inclusion in smart cities: infrastructural hybridization and the institutionalization of citizen participation in Bengaluru’s peripheries

ABSTRACT Smart city development can be traced back in the urban development trajectories of cities, as well as the respective articulations, framing and practices of ‘inclusive’ and ‘participatory’ smart cities. As smart city development steadily gains more and more traction among urban policy makers throughout the Global South, many scholars warn for its negative consequences on the accessibility of infrastructure and the processes that transform democratic citizenship practices. Rather than perceiving the transformative power of smart cities as a phenomenon particular to the use of new technologies, this paper aims to analyse societal segregation and marginalization through smart city development and traces these externalities as a continuation or intensification of existing governance practices. This is demonstrated by the case study on the metropolitan city of Bengaluru, that participates in India's national Smart City Mission. Due to massive urbanization, Bengaluru's peripheries are suffering from increasing pressures on its basic infrastructure. In response, state actors have turned to hybridizing the city's infrastructure facilities and governance to market- and civil society actors. Furthermore, the efforts of middle-class civil society groups that contribute to infrastructural governance through the assistance in planning, facilitation and controlling state responsibilities are institutionalized by bureaucratic state actors, at the cost of electoral governance by local representatives. This analysis on infrastructure governance in the peripheries has been set in relation to a discourse analysis of official policy documents on the inclusive and participatory character of smart cities. The practices of hybridization and institutionalization not only undermine the access to basic infrastructure for marginalized groups but also heavily underpin the design of Bengaluru's smart city projects. To be called inclusive, we argue that smart city projects should make an effort to improve the overall accessibilities of infrastructures for all classes and population groups.

Managing Change in Pluralistic Organizations: The Role of Normative Accountability Assumptions

ABSTRACTPluralistic organizations face the challenge of managing the co-existence of multiple sets of assumptions associated with each institutional logic. This multiplicity of assumptions problematizes the findings from the change management literature that for successful change management, the normative assumptions of the change initiative should be congruent with the organizational normative assumptions. One of the organizational mechanisms in which the normative assumptions are encoded and enacted is the system of accountability, hence in pluralistic organizations, there is a need to understand the role of the interplay of the normative accountability assumptions of the change initiative with the multiple sets of accountability assumptions representing individual logics within the organization. This study examines the case of a project to renew a strategic framework of a Canadian public university. The project diverged from the existing governance practices and their associated accountability assumptions that represented the institutional logic of managerialism. We found that this project was widely accepted, despite deviating from the institutional logic that supported existing practices, because its accountability assumptions were congruent with co-existing and deeply-rooted, democratic logic within the organization. Our findings contribute to the change management literature by highlighting the role of normative accountability assumptions in change management within pluralistic organizations.

Governance and control in distributed ledgers: Understanding the challenges facing blockchain technology in financial services

As blockchain platforms are becoming increasingly noticeable in financial services and beyond, questions arise regarding their suitability to compete with or replace existing payment systems and marketplaces and redesign the financial infrastructures of the future. Prominent among these concerns are issues around governance and control in distributed ledgers: How are distributed ledger technologies governed? Can blockchains address complex administration problems? What key issues of note for practitioners and academics have emerged thus far? In this paper we aim to review the existing governance practices of established or popular blockchain and decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) systems with a view to understanding how they hold up in times of crises. What questions are raised when they are compromised or faced consensus challenges in coordinating action especially around control and accountability? We use a translational process, generating focal insights about present concerns from the reference point of completed academic studies and extensive practitioner consultation. Rather than adopting a declarative approach attempting to provide all the answers, we draw insights from the IT platform governance literature to offer a critical perspective for asking the right questions around key governance issues in financial infrastructure such as decision rights, control mechanisms, and incentives.

Tourism transition in peripheral rural areas: Theories, issues and strategies

This article examines the relationship between “rural peripherality” and “tourism transition” to describe the ongoing transformations within the tourist supply in rural areas, highlighting the importance these concepts are acquiring in both the theoretical debate and the formation of policies. Based on the classification of peripheral areas provided by the Italian Strategy for Inner Areas, the authors have undertaken a detailed statistical analysis at the municipality level, considering tourism as an important driver of socio-economical change. A model of governance based on “transition management” is put forward as a practical tool to guide these processes. A case study conducted through participatory action-research offered the opportunity to overcome existing governance practices and experiment with more adaptive methods to manage the transition.

Corporate social responsibility and shareholder support for corporate governance changes

Purpose This paper examines whether shareholders consider corporate social responsibility (CSR) performance when voting on corporate governance change proposals submitted by dissident shareholders. These proposals recommend changes to the corporate governance status quo and are made by dissident shareholders who are dissatisfied with the company’s existing governance practices. Design/methodology/approach Using 195 governance change proposals voted on during 2013, the paper examines the relationship between CSR performance (obtained from the MSCI database) and the level of voting support for these proposals. Findings This study finds that shareholder support for corporate governance change proposals submitted by dissident shareholders is positively related to firms’ CSR concerns, especially environmental concerns. Research limitations/implications The findings suggest that shareholders may be concerned with the potentially adverse effects of weak CSR performance, especially poor environmental performance, and may support changes to corporate governance structures when a company’s CSR and environmental performance is weaker. Originality/value As the first research to examine the relationship between CSR and proposed changes to corporate governance, this study provides unique insights into shareholder perceptions of the value of CSR based on shareholders’ support (or lack thereof) for governance changes proposed by dissident shareholders.

Remedying Africa's Self-propelled Corruption: The Missing Link

ABSTRACTThis paper analyses mechanisms and circumstances that facilitate and mitigate against corruption in African countries. We focus on governance indicators that strongly correlate with corruption and suggest that this phenomenon in Africa results from poor democratic practice enabled by asymmetrical concentration of power in governments and the rise of alliances between elites and corporate interests within neo-liberal economic systems. Countries with low corruption have processes in which citizens engage robustly in public governance and public accountability, suggesting that solutions to corruption can originate from within existing governance practices in Africa. We explore African countries that manage to mitigate corruption by reviewing processes of citizen participation in governance occurring through innovations in contemporary mechanisms of decision-making and reintegration of traditional practices in public governance institutions and processes. We argue that corruption in Africa is not a ‘cultural’ phenomenon, but rather that long-standing cultural practices provide innovations in governance that reduce corruption. This paper concludes that wider citizen engagement in public governance strengthens ‘voice and accountability’, balances power asymmetries in decision-making processes of governments, and promotes ‘socially conscious’ leaderships committed to greater transparency and accountability in government.

Social Welfare and Levels of Democratic Government in the EU

This article investigates the involvement of sub-national authorities and national parliaments in policy coordination in the area of welfare policy in the European Union (EU). Their involvement is analysed in terms of influence in policy input, ex-post evaluation and monitoring of the executive. The findings are set against the four typologies of constitutional arrangements prevalent in Europe. The article concludes that the involvement of sub-national authorities is uneven, depending on their constitutional structures, as federal and regionalized states in general have more elaborate mechanisms, but some centralized states have sophisticated systems, too, which point to existing governance practices also playing a role. Throughout the EU, national parliaments remain largely decoupled from the open method of coordination. In the case of both sub-national authorities and parliaments, their input is greater in the preparatory phase than in the ex-post evaluation, which has implications for democratic policy-making.

THE EFFECTIVENESS OF CORPORATE GOVERNANCE CODES: LONG-TERM ANALYSIS FROM EAST ASIA

This study examines the effectiveness of corporate governance codes in four East Asian markets by investigating the timing and persistence of firm compliance with code recommendations. Over the period 1999 to 2009 we find a number of significant improvements in code compliance, but not all can be attributed to the introduction of code recommendations. We also provide evidence of the codes having unintended consequences — firms previously with higher board or committee independence reducing their independence to code recommendation levels. Our results suggest that code recommendations targeting the creation of new mechanisms (e.g., remuneration committees) have been effective but that policymakers need to be particularly careful when formulating code recommendations about existing governance practices.