Institutional Players Research Articles

Intermediary roles in the transposition of the Audiovisual Media Services Directive into domestic legislation: Evidence from Spain

This article discusses the role played by regulatory intermediaries including non-state actors, professional associations and transnational networked agencies during the transposition of the Audiovisual Media Services Directive into Spanish national legislation. It aims to fill in the gap in prior research by extending the application of the Regulator–Intermediary–Target (RIT) theoretical framework to the field of audiovisual media regulation. The analysis focuses on the transposition stages of the Directive after the date of entering into force on 19 December 2018, up to 19 September 2020. Data are taken from publicly available national sources and European databases. Results show that the RIT framework helps to single out the main initiatives undertaken by relevant Spanish authorities and institutional players, their methods and responses to policy challenges. Mapping out regulatory intermediaries and network of relationships established among multiple actors facilitates our understanding on the complex forms of audiovisual governance and implementation of European law.

IMPACT OF DATA ANALYTICS IN FINANCIAL MARKETS

Analysing the data in a specic goal oriented manner can yield great insights which be used to ensure smooth running and regulation of the markets while avoiding manipulations which can have adverse impact on other market participants and damage the integrity of nancial market framework. Large institutional players often use unethical methods to move the markets in there favour, one of the the example is freak trades. This issue can be countered by making it mandatory for brokers to share live trade data which can be thrown into manipulation detecting models specially for freak trades. Machine Learning and deep learning models can be made for detection of manipulative occurences which includes fake news detection, manipulation of bid ask depth. Data analysis shows immense potential for the process of regulation of nancial markets

Empowered by planning law: unintended outcomes in the Helsinki region

What are the unintended outcomes produced by Finland’s planning system? This analysis of present-day planning in Finland addresses how positive aims and promised designs and plans are diluted by the planning process. It shows how changes in the legislation governing planning are empowering the role of institutional needs rather than fostering the desired outcomes. Three levels are analysed: the development and crucial boundary conditions of planning-related legislation; the structure of urban development within the region; and a case study of the 30-year development of an orbital light-rail project. In contrast to claims in the planning literature, the communicative turn has not led to clear positive changes in the process and implementation. This research shows how institutional stakeholders are empowered in current planning practice. The attempt to make planning more inclusive and participatory has paradoxically led into the empowerment of institutional players. The actual outcomes of the planning process are side-tracked, and the evaluation is outsourced in the process, which calls into question the legitimacy of planning actions. There is a need for planning-related studies to address the legislative boundaries and the concrete outputs of the planning process. Practice relevance The implementation of the participatory planning ideal in Finland’s planning administration is examined for practical outcomes. By analysing the changes in the legislative framework of planning in its historical context, it is shown that the resulting planning apparatus is no less mechanistic or more open than its earlier forms. Instead, its new comprehensiveness renders it more complicated. Based on the analysis of the development of the legislation, combined with case studies, it is clear that the progress and direction of systemic change has not fulfilled its stated aims. This study shows that the major focus in the development of the planning system is at the level of input legitimacy. Apparent changes are the increased number of stakeholders and unintended complexity of the planning process. All this has been fostered by the changes in the planning law. Regardless of goodwill, the planning outcome is even less predictable and more dominated by power relations than before.

Growth Performance of Groundnut in Ananthapuramu District of Andhra Pradesh – A Temporal Analysis

Ananthapuramu district is considered as one of the major groundnut growing districts in the Andhra Pradesh state, with an average area, production and yield of 7.04 lakh hectares, 3.65 lakh tonnes and 512 kg ha-1 respectively, during the present millennium (from 2000-01 to 2018-19). Though the district is drought prone and majority of the cultivated area is under rainfed ecosystem, groundnut still continues to be one of the largest cropped area in the district. This interesting feature of the district has driven to take up the study on the performance of groundnut in the district through Compound Annual Growth Rates (CAGR) and decomposition analysis. CAGR of area, production and yield of the groundnut and decomposition analysis of groundnut production in the district were analyzed from 1970-71 to 2018-19. For lucidity, the study period was divided in three sub-periods viz., Period I (1970-71 to 1985-86), Period II (1986-87 to 1999-2000) and Period III (1999-2000 to 2018-19). It was evident from the results that, the growth performance of groundnut in Ananthapuramu district declined over the years, particularly in Period III, which implies that, despite lot of efforts from researchers and government to encourage groundnut production at macro level, the contribution of groundnut at district level showed a declining trend. This scenario could be attributed to low farm level yields with higher farm level inefficiencies, gaps in production technology, geographical location of the district under rain shadow region, declining scenario in the length of growing period, shift towards competing crops, poor post-harvest support, changing climate, lower yields, low extension contact at field level, low market prices and high abiotic and abiotic stresses. It was opined that, groundnut cultivation in the district should be encouraged with the partnership of private institutional players, where the farmers would get high quality seed, agro-advisory, post-harvest support, value addition support, remunerative and assured price support etc., encouragement of value addition, reduction of the length of market channels to reduce the supply gap between farmer and consumer would help in realignment of the growth performance of groundnut in the district.

THE BLACK SEA REGION ENERGY COOPERATION: CURRENT TRENDS AND PROSPECTS

The Black Sea region is one of the most complex regions in terms of energy development. It hosts several major powers and some developing countries that need to cut energy costs. In general, the region is controversial. It is influenced by external actors, and therefore regional stability is very difficult to achieve. In addition, institutional players such as the EU, the Belt and Road Initiative, the Black Sea Trade and Development Bank, etc., have their own vision of the future of the Black Sea region. The article is aimed at assessing the regional balance of power and estimating the interests of the countries of the region. Based on this assessment, the authors have classified the countries in the region, predicted potential alliances, and provided recommendations on how the countries should behave in the region. The key findings comprise the rejection of the two hypotheses: the countries of the region cooperate mainly through similar institutions; and the countries of the region can efficiently cooperate within the framework of a single strategy. The novelty of the article is in a new look on the regional distribution of power and new strategies for cooperation between countries in the region. Keywords: The Black Sea region, energy sector, strategy, institutions, balance of power JEL Classifications : F59, Q48 DOI: https://doi.org/10.32479/ijeep.11247

An Analysis of Institutional Support Structures for Livelihood Promotion in Fringe Villages of Kaziranga Tiger Reserve, Assam

This paper examines the sociological and institutional factors responsible for the status of livelihood interventions in the fringe villages of KTR. The study concludes that human and social capital building and addressing the vulnerability context such as impacts of floods and poverty alleviation are important for the success of income generating activities in KTR. It is recommended to have detailed discussions and coordination among institutional players like Government departments, NGOs and social institutions, and an in-depth understanding of past interventions while making decisions about current and future plans.

The Corporate Governance Machine

The conventional view of corporate governance is that it is a neutral set of processes and practices that govern how a company is managed. We demonstrate that this view is profoundly mistaken: in the United States, corporate governance has become a “system” composed of an array of institutional players, with a powerful shareholderist orientation. Our original account of this “corporate governance machine” generates insights about the past, present, and future of corporate governance. As for the past, we show how the concept of corporate governance developed alongside the shareholder primacy movement. This relationship is reflected in the common refrain of “good governance” that pervades contemporary discourse and the maturation of corporate governance as an industry oriented toward serving shareholders and their interests. As for the present, our analysis explains why the corporate social responsibility movement transformed into shareholder value-oriented ESG, stakeholder capitalism became relegated to a new separate form of entity known as the benefit corporation, and public company boards of directors became homogenized across industries. As for the future, our analysis suggests that absent a major paradigm shift that would force multiple institutional gatekeepers to switch their orientation, advocacy pushing corporations to consider the interests of employees, communities, and the environment will likely fail, unless such effort is framed as advancing shareholder interests.

תרבות בהסתדרות, 1945-1930

The Yishuv in Mandatory Palestine was dominated by the Hebrew national culture. Culture was an important and sometimes definitive element in securing the dominance of the Zionist Labor Movement during the Mandate era. The construction and shaping of a new Hebrew culture was a central principle in the movement’s creedal, political, and educational approach. The General Federation of Jewish Labor in Palestine, known as the Histadrut, which was the main institutional player in the shaping of cultural endeavor in Yishuv society, hewed to the spirit of the Socialist Zionist worldview. During this period, the Histadrut emerged as the most progressive, authentic and current cultural agent working to shape the Jewish-Zionist atmosphere and every-day life in Palestine. In the 1930s, the leading figure in the Histadrut’s cultural endeavor was Jacob Sandbank, who operated as part of the Cultural Center established in 1935. According to Sandbank, culture, in the sense of kultura, cannot be ‘manufactured’. Instead, he claimed that it materializes in various spheres of life, and its vital and spiritual elements come about inadvertently – without prior intent, without setting goals, and without dictating things ab initio.

Family-mediated migration infrastructure: Chinese international students and parents navigating (im)mobilities during the COVID-19 pandemic

The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic and associated responses such as border closure, lockdown measures and flight curtailment have severely disrupted transnational infrastructures that sustain, channel, organize and condition international migration. This infrastructural disruption has led to the double exclusion of temporary migrants from both sending and host societies. In this context, we explore how Chinese international students in the United Kingdom and their parents in China navigate transnational (im)mobilities during the pandemic. In doing so, we develop the conceptualization of “family-mediated migration infrastructure” to elucidate the role played by transnational family relationships in brokering information, mobilizing resources, and coordinating disjointed acts of institutional players in order to sustain transnational (im)mobility. We also reveal a distinctive emotional double-bind in the process of family-mediated infrastructuring, which requires members of transnational families to strategically perform emotional engagement and detachment in complex ways. Our findings highlight the functional resilience and emotional vulnerability of family-mediated transnational migration infrastructure, and render visible the intimate fabrics that contribute to sustaining transnationalism during the pandemic.

Intellectual Property as a Determinant of Health

Public health literature has long recognized the existence of determinants of health, a set of socio-economic conditions that affect health risks and health outcomes across the world. The World Health Organization defines these determinants as “forces and systems” consisting of “factors combin[ing] together to affect the health of individuals and communities.” Frameworks relying on determinants of health have been widely adopted by countries in the global South and North alike, as well as international institutional players, several of which are direct or indirect players in transnational intellectual property (IP) policymaking. Issues raised by the implementation of IP policies, however, are seldom treated as an integral part of analyses using these frameworks, even though IP bears direct effects on the dynamics of several determinants of health, such as access to health goods and health services. This article conceptualizes post-TRIPs IP as a contributing element to the literature on the socio-economic determinants of health. IP norms and policies have long been understood as playing a role in outcomes that closely align with determinants frameworks, but interventions inspired by institutions relying on determinants frameworks routinely fail to consider the role of international IP regimes. The article explores two consequences of this dissociation: first, it argues that TRIPs-implemented IP materially affects several determinants of health, both at the social and economic levels; and second, it argues that IP should be regarded on equal footing with other canonically recognized determinants of health. While taking steps towards the development of an IP framework that can be articulated with, and incorporated by, literature on the determinants of health, the article presents three short case studies on pharmaceutical and agricultural technologies—HIV prophylactic drugs (Truvada); drugs and vaccines needed for epidemic and pandemic preparedness (Ebola vaccines and COVID-19 treatments like remdesivir); and genetically modified rice crops.

Emerging Horizons of Clinical Engineering in Disaster Preparedness and Management

GLOBAL DISASTER UNPREPAREDNESS - The global COVID-19 crisis of 2020 has thrown a disturbing spotlight on the many ways in which healthcare systems, governments, medical industries, markets, and healthcare professions have been dangerously fragmented, unprepared, under-resourced, tragically slow and uncoordinated in responding to the most disruptive medical disaster of our times. Despite numerous threat-analysis studies, detailed pandemic scenarios and simulations by state and Federal agencies, despite billions of dollars spent on post-9/11 international disaster preparedness, and repeated top-levels warnings, the world’s governments, markets and healthcare systems have failed to prepare and prevent a health disaster from exploding into a multi-dimensional catastrophe. 
 The fragmentation of plans and competencies across sectors, complicated by political decision-making, clearly demand mission-critical re-organization among the institutional players, with more coordinated, integrated, and systems-oriented professional approaches worldwide, and active cultivation of public health intelligence. For the reasons that follow, Clinical and Biomedical Engineers are among the best-suited health professionals to assume an expanded and comprehensive leadership role in this urgently needed transformation.

Late globalization and evolution, episodes and epochs of industries: Evidence from Danish textile and fashion industry, 1945–2015

AbstractThis paper explores the conceptual terrain of what we term late globalization. The late globalization phenomena are multilevel and multidimensional; this paper offers an initial portal into these phenomena. Understanding late globalization would provide academic insights and help in shaping practices at international, national, sectoral, and corporate levels. The paper follows a macro‐conceptual to a micro‐empirical path to provide illustrative empirical evidence. Studying the emergence and evolution of Danish Textile and Fashion Industry (DTFI) between 1945 and 2015—a quintessential sector for globalization—allows the examination of several interrelated issues: critical events, impediments, pressures, and turning points that shaped DTFI; main institutional players that motivated key policy changes in and evolution of DTFI; and effects of late globalization on size, mission, location, knowledge, growth, and structure of DTFI. This longitudinal case study of the development of the DTFI brings to the fore key features that shape late globalization at the sectoral‐national level: government industrial policies toward domestic and foreign players in an industry, global competition that shapes and continually reshapes (cost as well as quality‐driven) location of key value chain activities (and the concomitant global distribution of core competencies and skills), and the growing role of information technologies that enable globally‐dispersed value chains to function in cohesive and unified ways. Late globalization has additional levels and dimensions; and we point to implications for future research.

The Emergence of Transparency and Exchange of Information for Tax Purposes on Request as an International Tax Custom

In this article, the author contends that transparency and exchange of information on request became an international tax custom. The content of this new international tax custom is the exchange of information on request with regard to all tax matters for the administration and enforcement of domestic tax law without regard to a domestic tax interest requirement or bank secrecy for tax purposes with extensive safeguards to protect confidentiality of the information exchanged (the so called EOI Standard). The emergence of the EOI Standard as an international tax custom is a clear sign of change of the existing global tax governance. There is a realization that international organizations and global forums with expertise in tax matters (especially the OECD, UN, and Global Forum on Transparency and Exchange of Information for Tax Purposes) are actually performing a fundamental role. They influence states’ practices and opinio juris with soft law instruments and peer review procedures that ultimately influence the development of hard law in tax matters, a sphere traditionally conceived as being exclusive to states. The consequences of the emergence of new international tax customs are the submission of states to the international obligation to exchange information on request even in the absence of treaty provisions and the applicability of a state responsibility doctrine in the event of non-compliance. Therefore, if states intend to not lose their almost exclusive role in global tax governance, the role of the existing international organizations and other institutional players must be restrained. The disadvantage, however, is the inability to achieve cooperation in certain strategic matters in tackling double non-taxation arising from aggressive tax planning arrangements. Global tax governance, international tax cooperation, transparency and exchange of information on request, international custom, customary international law, tax sovereignty.

Institutional Strategic Management of Manpower Planning in Nusantara Malay Archipelago: (Case Study on Indonesia’s Public Policy of Indonesian Migrant Workers (PMIs) Working in Malaysia)

The issue of Indonesian migrant workers (PMIs) working in Malaysia has been an ongoing sticking point in the Indonesian-Malaysian relations. Malaysia is reportedly the country with the highest number of complaints with regards to PMIs. This study aims to examine Indonesian migrant workers (PMI) working in Malaysia from an institutional perspective, especially vis-a-vis the planning processes, strategic management and conceptualizing the problem. This article is based on a research that posits a possible explanation to this problem from the perspective of human resource management process, especially in manpower or human resource planning. In pursuing this line of inquiry, the research analyzes the institutional players involved in administrating and managing the PMIs. It adopts a qualitative case study approach in policy analysis, albeit supported and complemented by quantitative data. Among the key findings of this study is the high degree of the bureaucratic and procedural complexities related to processing of migrant workers. This is largely contributed by the inefficiencies, lack of transparency and even more so the redundancies existing in the eco-system of various agencies involved in the planning and placement process of PMI, including those at the central, regional/provincial and local levels of governmental as well as private entities. Yet another key finding points to the lack of integrated coordination which is strategic and comprehensive between the governments of Indonesia and Malaysia in the form of Government to Government joint-machinery as well as intra-governmental operations in Indonesia. Consequently, the ones who often play a pivotal role in handling PMI are private agencies and individuals, while governments only act as facilitators. Evaluating from an institutional strategic management approach, improvements are needed in the manpower planning agencies in crucial areas, including human resource (manpower) development strategies, availability of human resource data, institutional personnel competencies in manpower development and career path planning capacity of the workers. Ultimately, with the third key finding of the research, this article questions the premise of the problem, which is the underlying presumption that PMIs are causing problems in Malaysia or that Malaysia is the worst destination country for PMIs. The research has discovered among the top countries with the largest number of complaints, Malaysia actually has among the lowest, if not the lowest percentages of complaints.

Price discovery and microstructure in ether spot and derivative markets

Ethereum is an important blockchain, being the first and most popular public platform for the smart contracts underpinning financial transactions, time-stamping of supply chains, decentralized applications and initial coin offerings. Ethereum's cryptocurrency, ether, is actively traded on centralized exchanges, second only to bitcoin. It has attracted investor's interest primarily because of its intrinsic value – small units of ether called ‘gas’ are used, essentially, as the fuel driving smart contract transactions on the Ethereum blockchain. We ask whether off-chain trading on ether derivatives plays a dominant role in ether spot price discovery, thereby driving ether's utility value for on-chain activity. Using minute-by-minute data we find that the ether perpetual swap on BitMEX, an unregulated cryptocurrency derivative exchange, has dominant trading volume and price discovery over the major spot exchanges. Furthermore, we identify interesting hour-of-day and day-of-week effects in trading volume on the spot exchanges, and these indicate that more informed institutional players are trading ether spot and derivatives.

Artificial Intelligence: Opportunities, Challenges and Solutions.

The advancement of internet operations and artificial intelligence is vast. Institutional players and major top industries are flourishing and growing the frontiers of their businesses by applying the science of artificial intelligence and big data to their products. An examination of some of the benefits and pitfalls of artificial intelligence is what the paper seeks to discuss, as well as how professionals and business experts can position themselves to take advantage of artificial intelligence and machine learning.

Revisiting the virtues of veto point: political corruption in post-Soeharto Indonesia

ABSTRACT This article expects to extend existing researches on the effect of political institutions on political corruption. Examining the case of post-Soeharto Indonesia, it argues that political corruption has become more rampant because of structural opportunities which incentivize corrupt practices. Employing veto player theory, this article illustrates how the conventional wisdom of installing more veto players has worked counterproductively to increase rather than to constrain political corruption. This is explained by the nature of the legislative process, which requires all players to agree before any legislative proposal can be enacted. Instead of ensuring checks and balances, the dispersion of more institutional veto players has been used as a political instrument to frustrate the executive. Bribery is used as a remedy for speeding up budget-making processes and getting priority policies approved. This article concludes that the veto player system needs to consider the nature of legislative processes in a specific context.

Perceptions of artificial intelligence in healthcare: findings from a qualitative survey study among actors in France

BackgroundArtificial intelligence (AI), with its seemingly limitless power, holds the promise to truly revolutionize patient healthcare. However, the discourse carried out in public does not always correlate with the actual impact. Thus, we aimed to obtain both an overview of how French health professionals perceive the arrival of AI in daily practice and the perception of the other actors involved in AI to have an overall understanding of this issue.MethodsForty French stakeholders with diverse backgrounds were interviewed in Paris between October 2017 and June 2018 and their contributions analyzed using the grounded theory method (GTM).ResultsThe interviews showed that the various actors involved all see AI as a myth to be debunked. However, their views differed. French healthcare professionals, who are strategically placed in the adoption of AI tools, were focused on providing the best and safest care for their patients. Contrary to popular belief, they are not always seeing the use of these tools in their practice. For healthcare industrial partners, AI is a true breakthrough but legal difficulties to access individual health data could hamper its development. Institutional players are aware that they will have to play a significant role concerning the regulation of the use of these tools. From an external point of view, individuals without a conflict of interest have significant concerns about the sustainability of the balance between health, social justice, and freedom. Health researchers specialized in AI have a more pragmatic point of view and hope for a better transition from research to practice.ConclusionAlthough some hyperbole has taken over the discourse on AI in healthcare, diverse opinions and points of view have emerged among French stakeholders. The development of AI tools in healthcare will be satisfactory for everyone only by initiating a collaborative effort between all those involved. It is thus time to also consider the opinion of patients and, together, address the remaining questions, such as that of responsibility.

Dynamic approach to the study of institutions in green economy: macroeconomics, regions and industries

The paper extensively reviews the implementation processes of the Association Agreements between the European Union and Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine in the area of environment. The correlation between the implementation processes of the Association Agreements on the environment with the institutional and neo-institutional theories is determined. The most complementary elements of the neo-institutional theory regarding institutional processes for the implementation of the Association Agreement between the EU and Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine in relation to the environment are developed. The neo-institutional methodology of environmental management based on the formation of 'institutional ecosystem' is scientifically reviewed and substantiated. The scientific elements that support its methodological integrity are defined: 'institutional dominants', 'institutional replications', and 'institutional players'. A decomposition of these concepts within the framework of modern economic-ecological and neo-institutional theory, and their connection in the context of the formation of the national institutional model of eco-management is analysed.

A dynamic approach to the study of institutions in a green economy: macroeconomics, regions and industries

The paper extensively reviews the implementation processes of the Association Agreements between the European Union and Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine in the area of environment. The correlation between the implementation processes of the Association Agreements on the environment with the institutional and neo-institutional theories is determined. The most complementary elements of the neo-institutional theory regarding institutional processes for the implementation of the Association Agreement between the EU and Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine in relation to the environment are developed. The neo-institutional methodology of environmental management based on the formation of 'institutional ecosystem' is scientifically reviewed and substantiated. The scientific elements that support its methodological integrity are defined: 'institutional dominants', 'institutional replications', and 'institutional players'. A decomposition of these concepts within the framework of modern economic-ecological and neo-institutional theory, and their connection in the context of the formation of the national institutional model of eco-management is analysed.