Formal Safeguards Research Articles

Collaborative inter‐organisational relationships and management control change

AbstractThis study examines the changing use of controls to manage an ongoing inter‐organisational collaborative relationship. We do this by studying the development of an open innovation relationship using a case study informed by concepts from neo‐old institutional economics and Simons’ levers of control. Data was collected via semi‐structured interviews and an analysis of documents. Our findings suggest that initially, governance structures and formal safeguards were applied diagnostically, which resulted in low levels of trust. Over time, the development of a collaborative relationship through investments in relational specificity has resulted in a more interactive style of control, which has increased trust.

The Commonwealth Magistrates’ and Judges’ Association (CMJA) Brisbane Declaration: a brief assessment of magisterial independence in Malaysia

ABSTRACT Judicial independence for the lower courts, especially at the magisterial level, is often disregarded, be it administratively or in academic studies. Shortcomings in the independence of the Malaysian magistracy, though apparent, were never systematically evaluated against the judicial independence benchmarks. By using the Brisbane Declaration 2018, a Commonwealth Magistrates’ and Judges’ Association (CMJA) established instrument that prescribed standards of independence for the magistracies, this article briefly assesses the state of magisterial independence in Malaysia. The analysis confirms that institutional independence, adjudicatory independence and administrative independence of the Malaysian magistracy have been compromised. Certain essential formal safeguards of judicial independence are also absent. This lack of magisterial independence is mainly attributable to the complexity of the courts’ administrative structure that exists as a hybrid framework between the Executive and the Judicature. Hence, further in-depth study of this matter is required to preserve the dignity, integrity, impartiality and independence of the Malaysian magistracy.

The dark side of B2B relationships in GVCs – Micro-foundational influences and strategic governance tools

Global value chains (GVCs) consist of “a large number of parts that interact in a non-simple way” (Simon, 1962: 468), and their governance is fraught with human behavioral challenges. Multinational enterprise (MNE) decision makers are cognizant of the complexity and challenges, and lead firms in GVCs attempt to address them with appropriate governance. Were that not the case, we would see more dark side outcomes of B2B relationships in GVCs. We use the New Internalization Theory (NIT) to explain and predict the governance choices made by lead MNEs and their GVC partners. Specifically, we take a micro-foundational perspective that builds upon the concepts of bounded rationality and bounded reliability. We point to three broad, non-mutually exclusive categories of governance tools – formal safeguards, relational tools, and entrepreneurship-oriented mechanisms – that can prevent, or at least mitigate, dark side outcomes. We illustrate with data from nine case studies of international GVCs.

Methodological Challenges Faced in Doing Research With Vulnerable Women: Reflections From Fieldwork Experiences

Methodological challenges of qualitative research involving people considered vulnerable are widely prevalent, for which many novice researchers are not well equipped or prepared for. This places great physical and emotional demands on the researchers. However, a discussion to bring to light the issues related to the researchers’ experiences and practical concerns in the field remains largely invisible in the literature. This article presents the reflective accounts of a doctoral researcher’s fieldwork experience, particularly in relation to the methodological challenges encountered in carrying out research with vulnerable women in rural and northern Thailand. Four of these challenges pertain to selecting a field site and acquiring access, recruiting and building trust, maintaining privacy and confidentiality, and being vulnerable as a researcher. Suggestions from the literature and practical strategies the researcher employed to deal with such challenges and real dilemmas are discussed. This article calls for more formal safeguards during the research process and suggests that researchers reflect upon their experiences and emotions in undertaking a field research, making the accounts of their research journey heard and beneficial to other novice and/or experienced researchers.

International university-university technology transfer: Strategic management framework

International technology transfer between universities is an emerging phenomenon and contributes to the socio-economic development of regions and countries. Technology transfer concerns transactions or long-term collaborations between acquirers and suppliers of technology. Based on strategic management theory, this study constructs a framework on the international technology transfer between universities. We theorize on the entry mode and pathway towards collaboration and apply the theoretical constructs to the cases of China and the Western economies, i.e., Europe and the US. By comparing the Chinese and Western perspective, we observe different entry modes and pathways of international university-university technology transfer. With regard to entry mode, the dominant Chinese perspective is to enter international technology transfer collaborations formally and with substantial resource commitments, while the dominant Western perspective suggests a more informal entry mode without the creation of a new entity. The Chinese pathway of international university-university collaborations on technology transfer is based on generating mutual confidence through formal arrangements and on replacing formal safeguards by informal arrangement as the collaboration matures, while the Western perspective suggests formalizing collaborations through a greater commitment of resources, which reduces managerial problems and allows collaborative learning.

Collaborative manufacturer-distributor relationships: the role of governance, information sharing and creativity

Purpose – This paper seeks to report the results of a study examining the effects of manufacturer-distributor relationships' governance structures (market governance, third-party enforcement of agreements and self-enforcing governance modes) on the distributor's willingness to collaborate with the manufacturer. Design/methodology/approach – To test the hypotheses, survey data were gathered from 224 wholesalers from the food and beverage industry in Spain. Manufacturer-distributor collaboration refers to the possibility of sharing strategic information and encouraging creativity. Regression analyses illustrate the differences in the distributor's willingness to collaborate with the manufacturer under different governance scenarios. Findings – The study illustrates that the greater the skill of the manufacturers and distributors in developing self-enforcing governance modes (e.g. bilateral formal safeguards and bilateral informal safeguards) that complement third-party enforcement of agreements (e.g. legal contracts), the greater the willingness of both to share strategic information and creativity will be. Furthermore, this investigation delineates the moderating effect of opportunism on the relationship between governance and the distributor's willingness to collaborate with the manufacturer. Finally, the results show that the distributor's willingness to share strategic information has an inverted-U relationship with creativity and innovation development in manufacturer-distributor relationships. Practical implications – The study's findings allow firms to concentrate their efforts on the most relevant governance structures that minimize transaction costs and provide incentives to develop collaborative manufacturer-distributor relationships and create value for the customer. Originality/value – The research acknowledges the multidimensional nature of collaboration and goes deeper into the need to share strategic information (external and internal strategic information) and the factors that compose the generation of creative ideas in the manufacturer-distributor relationship (knowledge-sharing routines, learning orientation, open-mindedness and management support). Additionally, although research on collaborative distribution channel practices has advanced over the past decades, the importance of governance structures to the development of collaborative practices has not been firmly established. The paper addresses this void in the literature by reporting the results of an empirical study examining manufacturer-distributor collaborations within the food and beverage industry in Spain.

Exclusivity in licensing alliances: using hostages to support technology commercialization

AbstractWe examine why exclusivity provisions are used in licensing alliances, and when restrictions in licensing scope (e.g., by product or geography) accompany these exclusivity provisions. We find broad support for the proposition that these features are associated with the contractual challenges of allying with licensees when they contribute valuable complementary capabilities toward the commercialization of licensed technologies. Evidence from our data suggests that exclusivity is used as a contractual hostage to safeguard licensee investments in complementary assets and to enable contracting over early stage technologies. Scope restrictions are employed to balance the tradeoffs between the value creation made possible by licensee complementary capabilities and the transactional hazards entailed in working exclusively with licensees. Our results also suggest that scope restrictions and other formal safeguards may be substitute mechanisms for managing similar transactional concerns in licensing alliances. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

DOES POLITICAL CHANGE AFFECT SENIOR MANAGEMENT TURNOVER? AN EMPIRICAL ANALYSIS OF TOP-TIER LOCAL AUTHORITIES IN ENGLAND

In many political systems the political neutrality of senior managers’ tenure is often cherished as a key part of the politics-administration dichotomy and is subject to formal safeguards. We test hypotheses about the impact of political change on senior management turnover drawn from political science, public administration and private sector management theory. Using panel data to control for unobserved heterogeneity between authorities, we find that changes in political party control and low organizational performance have both separate and joint positive effects on the turnover rate of senior managers. By contrast, the most senior manager, the chief executive, is more sheltered: the likelihood of a chief executive succession is higher only when party change and low performance occur together. Thus the arrival of a new ruling party reduces the tenure of senior managers, but chief executives are vulnerable to political change only when performance is perceived as weak.

Using Formal and Informal Mechanisms to Limit Opportunism - Review and Classification of the Hold-Up Literature

The hold-up problem has been the source of much investigation by fields ranging from economics to accounting. Despite contractual protection, firms and researchers are still looking for better remedies to hold-ups and searching for ways to encourage firms to make socially optimal specialized investments. In this study, I review and classify analytical and empirical research aimed at finding and testing mitigating mechanisms to hold-ups and I suggest avenues for future research. This research is organized around strategic decision-making with organizational design, trade decisions, and resource allocations. I find that analytical research has focused on formal mitigating mechanisms to hold-ups (i.e., integration, joint ownership, contracts, pricing mechanisms, incentives, and interdependence) and only recently complemented these formal safeguards with informal mechanisms in the form of relational contracting and private information. Empirical research has taken a different approach by focusing overwhelmingly on informal mechanisms. This review also shows that although hold-ups are likely to occur with intra-firm trade and resource allocations, these research streams have not pursued analytical and empirical investigations to the same extent as research on inter-firm trade. As a result, this review not only integrates the findings of the various research streams, but also provides suggestions for future research.

Safeguarding SMEs dynamic capabilities in technology innovative SME-large company partnerships in South Africa

This paper focuses on technological collaboration between small and large firms. It is argued that such collaborations can be beneficial for both types of partner, but that small firms often are confronted by the hazards of collaboration as these relationships are typically asymmetric. As a result of this, knowledge embodied in the dynamic (strategic, internal and external) capabilities of SMEs can flow unintentionally to the larger partner. If this occurs, the collaboration would be less successful from the SMEs’ point of view. Next, it is proposed that the use of formal and informal safeguards can protect technology innovative SMEs against such knowledge flows. This paper examines to what extent is the number of dynamic capabilities of SMEs associated with partnership success and to what extent is this relationship influenced by the number of safeguards used by the SMEs? A sample of 43 technology innovative SMEs was interviewed by means of a structured questionnaire. Logistic regression analysis was conducted to determine the relationship between the number of dynamic capabilities on the one hand and partnership success on the other. Moreover, the impact of (in)formal safeguards on this relationship was analyzed. The research found that SME's strategic and internal capabilities are negatively associated with partnership success, whereas external capabilities are positively related. The inclusion of safeguards turned out to produce the hypothesized effects. The paper shows, therefore, that unintentional knowledge flows from the SME to the larger partner can be prevented by putting in place formal and informal protection mechanisms.

A construction of auditor independence in the Czech Republic: local insights

A notion of auditor independence, envisaged as crucial to the credibility of the audit function, resides in professional Codes of Ethics in much of the western world. Since the beginning of the 1990s, the auditor independence construct has been imported eastwards and incorporated into legislation and Code of Practices amongst central and eastern European economies (CEE), together with other requirements, as the countries prepare for their accession to the European Union. This study is aimed at ascertaining the meanings conveyed by the auditor independence construct and its state of realisation in one of the transition economies of the CEE region, the Czech Republic. Also, the study seeks to understand how local culture impacts upon a particular understanding of auditor independence. In order to examine the auditor independence in this part of the world, a framework for analysis incorporating structural conditions, local traditions and culture is proposed. The analysis is conducted first de jure, and is based upon a review of the Czech law and professional regulation. This is complemented with a de facto analysis based upon interviews with audit practitioners, regulators and financial statement users in the Czech Republic and on a review of Czech media coverage. What emerges from the study is a particular local understanding of the auditor independence construct, perceived primarily as an economic concept in the context of market instability and the immature legal framework. It appears that there is a tendency to follow the form of audit procedures without substantial rationalisation. We conclude that socio‐economic and cultural pressures appear to far outweigh any formal safeguards implemented to maintain professional integrity and competence in the CEE region.

Composing Web services on the Semantic Web

Service composition is gaining momentum as the potential silver bullet for the envisioned Semantic Web. It purports to take the Web to unexplored efficiencies and provide a flexible approach for promoting all types of activities in tomorrow’s Web. Applications expected to heavily take advantage of Web service composition include B2B E-commerce and E-government. To date, enabling composite services has largely been an ad hoc, time-consuming, and error-prone process involving repetitive low-level programming. In this paper, we propose an ontology-based framework for the automatic composition of Web services. We present a technique to generate composite services from high-level declarative descriptions. We define formal safeguards for meaningful composition through the use of composability rules. These rules compare the syntactic and semantic features of Web services to determine whether two services are composable. We provide an implementation using an E-government application offering customized services to indigent citizens. Finally, we present an exhaustive performance experiment to assess the scalability of our approach.

Presidential Power and Republican Government: The Theory and Practice of OMB Review of Agency Rules

This article focuses on Office of Management and Budget (OMB) review of agency rules, a major institutional innovation of the Reagan Administration which established central clearance of administrative rules for the first time in our history. It places OMB review in theoretical perspective by examining the traditional paradigm of public administration, the breakdown of that paradigm, and the manner in which the theory offered to justify OMB review both draws on prior elements of doctrine and combines them in new and distinctive ways. In addition, it measures practice against theory by analyzing the actual impacts of OMB review on presidential power, objective or impartial administrative decision making, and the formal safeguards established by administrative procedures and court review. Finally, the article analyzes the broader institutional significance of OMB review by assessing its theory and practice in terms of their implications for adapting republican political institutions in the United States to ...