Institutional Realities Research Articles

Comparative analysis of anti-epidemiological institutional provision of national economies during the covid-19 pandemic

Methods. The methodological basis of the research is general scientific and special methods of scientific cognition, in particular methods of interdisciplinary, institutional, comparative and statistical analysis together with the use of tabular and graphical methods of data visualization. A limitation in the proposed study is the lack of generally accepted theoretical approaches to quantifying the level of institutional provision. Results. The main features of the new institutional realities are analyzed and it is hypothesized that there is a relationship between the number of people infected with Covid-19 and the anti-epidemiological institutional provision of national economies during the pandemic. To prove or disprove this hypothesis, data from 166 countries were analyzed, including a regional comparative analysis for 2020. The study confirmed the hypothesis of a relationship between the number of Covid-19 cases and the level of institutional provision of national economies during the pandemic. Based on the results of the analysis, conclusions were made on the preventive nature of institutional provision during the pandemic and the need for coordination and cooperation of countries in implementing institutional changes aimed at creating a global institutional environment to overcome the Covid-19 pandemic. Novelty. The comparative analysis of anti-epidemiological institutional provision of national economies during the Covid-19 pandemic is carried out on the basis of which the corresponding conclusions are made. Practical value. The results of the study have theoretical and practical value because they are based on a comparative analysis of institutional provision in different countries and regions during the pandemic and can be used to improve the current state of anti-epidemiological institutional provision of national economies and similar global challenges in the future.

Class, Culture And Control: the Transformation Of Educational Work In A Gentrifying Primary School

ABSTRACT Research indicates that white middle-class families’ engagement with urban schools in gentrifying localities is often characterised by strategies of dominance and control, which support claims of belonging and identity, as well as securing educational advantage for their children. This is referred as ‘class colonisation’ or ‘school gentrification’. However, there has been a neglect of educators’ perspectives and responses to urban social change and middle-class parental practices. In this paper, I offer an institutionally-focused analysis of class colonisation as a feature of educators’ working lives. I argue that class colonisation produces organisational ‘turmoil’ through parental practices and interactions which unsettle staff’s social and cultural control over key aspects of their work situation and institutional boundary maintenance. This turmoil is experienced as disruptive of the social order, generating staff cynicism, conflict, ambivalence, and alienation. I draw on ethnographic data with teachers and teaching assistants from a gentrifying inner-London primary school to empirically specify these arguments. Theoretically, this paper integrates elements of Bourdieu and micro-sociology, to foreground how agents use their unequal resources to negotiate their interpersonal institutional realities, and in the process, re-produce classed and racialised boundaries and relations within the changing contexts of urban education.

Cubical ethnography: Another kind of fieldwork

Studying the contemporary clinic necessitates rethinking what it means to both enter and access ‘the field’. In these Field Notes, I reflect on the beginnings of fieldwork and the processes of crafting research protocols which can stand up to formal ethics reviews. Rather than treating the process as a barrier to ‘real’ ethnographic research, I suggest that the mundane institutional realities of inserting oneself into a bureaucratic atmosphere form a particular—but no less valid—kind of ethnographic experience. I call this experience ‘cubicle ethnography’, after how the structures of the office—keys, badges, desktop computers—reflected negotiations of access and my own legitimacy as a visiting ethnographer.

Meat Safety in Northern Tanzania: Inspectors' and Slaughter Workers' Risk Perceptions and Management.

Through a social scientific lens, this paper considers the risk perceptions and “risk-based decision-making” of two key groups in a northern Tanzanian context: (1) frontline government meat inspectors and health officers charged with ensuring that red meat sold commercially is safe for people to consume, and (2) the workers who slaughter and process cattle and red meat prior to its sale in rural butcheries. In contrast to techno-scientific understandings of disease risk and “rational” approaches to its management, this paper foregrounds the role of social, economic and institutional context in shaping the perceptions and practices around meat safety of these actors whose daily, close proximity to meat means they play a significant role in mitigating potential meat-borne disease. We show how limited resources, and a combination of scientific and local knowledge and norms result in “situated expertise” and particular forms of risk perception and practice which both enhance and compromise meat safety in different ways. Actors' shared concerns with what is visible, ensures that visibly unsafe or abnormal meat is excluded from sale, and that infrastructure and meat is kept “clean” and free of certain visible contaminants such as soil or, on occasion, feces. While such contaminants serve as a good proxy for pathogen presence, meat inspectors and especially slaughter workers were much less aware of or concerned with invisible pathogens that may compromise meat safety. The role of process and meat handling did not figure very strongly in their concerns. Microorganisms such as Salmonella and Campylobacter, which can easily be transferred onto meat and persist in slaughter and meat sale environments, went unacknowledged. Although health officers expressed more concern with hygiene and meat handling, their influence over slaughter process and butchery operations was unclear. Ultimately, recognizing the perceptions and practices of frontline actors who engage with meat, and the ways in which social, material and institutional realities shape these, is important for understanding how decisions about risk and meat safety are made in the complexity and context of everyday life, and thus for finding effective ways to support them to further enhance their work.

Culture and Mentality-Related Specifics of Implementation of the ‘Law on Counteracting Bullying’ in the Environment of Educational Institutions

Abstract:
 The article sought to analyse the pedagogical instruments capable to bring change in culture and mentality-based perception of bullying among stakeholders of the educational process with the purpose of implementation of the Law ‘On Amendments to Certain Legislative Acts of Ukraine on Counteracting Bullying (Harassment)’ in the environment of educational institutions. This study used theoretical methods: analysis of scientific, pedagogical and regulatory sources in order to distinguish the gaps and areas to study in this particular problem, analysis of domestic and foreign best practices; empirical methods: diagnostic: survey questionnaires; statistical methods: quantitative analysis of the results of the survey questionnaires. The statistical data the authors obtained as a result of a survey of students from four schools prove that the problem of bullying in Ukrainian educational institutions is partially caused by socio-cultural and mental impact factors. Examples of overseas best practices in addressing the problem of bullying prevention in educational institutions, which can be adapted to the realities of Ukrainian educational institutions, include further outlined role-pays: ‘School Anti-Bullying Court’ and ‘Shuttle Diplomacy’ and the ‘Student Support Service’ model. Bullying is, to a large extent, a socio-cultural and mental problem of Ukrainian society, capable of dramatically affecting students’ learning abilities and their socialisation. Pedagogical tools to be used to deal with the above problem might be (a) regular anonymous interviewing of students about cases of violence; (b) teachers' educational work with children and parents on the problem of bullying; (c) involvement of the students in the development of rules of conduct; (d) teachers supervising schoolchildren after school hours; (e) teacher training (professional upgrade) for pedagogical, psychological and legal strategies for bullying prevention among students.

Why adaptive management will not save us: Exploring management directives' interaction with practice

SummarySparked by the critique of practitioners and academics on the excessive managerialisation of development project management, the donor community turns increasingly towards adaptive management approaches. Rather than examining the effectiveness of the new adaptive management trend, the article deals with the more fundamental question of how the underlying relationship between management frameworks and practice can be characterised. To this end, the article analyses the practices of a select number of Dutch Civil Society consortia that are working with a new adaptive management framework. Making use of a practice theory approach, the analysis finds that rules are not directly translated into practice. The presented rules (innovations) are always mediated by antecedent practice, shared histories and interactions amongst individuals, communities and artefacts. Notably, the flexibility provided for in the framework does not reach all links in the aid chain equally and is counterbalanced by the institutional realities of the aid system. The article therewith adds to the literature on everyday development management cautioning against overestimating the effects of management tools, as they operate within and are determined by the funding and accountability requirements of the larger aid regime.

Combining the roles of evaluator and facilitator: Assessing societal impacts of transdisciplinary research while building capacities to improve its quality

Participation of relevant stakeholders, knowledge integration, responsive and emergent design and effective boundary management are four key features of transdisciplinary research (TDR). These features pose significant challenges to both undertaking TDR and evaluating its societal impact. We argue that TDR’s context specificity and complexity warrant an evaluation approach that supports the coordinating team in developing these key features. In light of this, this article aims to reconcile two distinct foci of TDR evaluation, namely supporting transdisciplinary capacity building and impact evaluation. We share the results from a combined approach in which the authors acted both as facilitators and evaluators of a TDR project, to conduct an embedded, formative evaluation. Our findings show that the approach allowed for better access to the participants and sensitivity to their perspectives on impact, and for enhanced understanding of complex internal and external project dynamics and how these shaped the project. This resulted in a meaningful assessment of TDR’s societal impacts and enabled attributing these to specific process elements. Moreover, the approach supported the coordinating TDR team’s capacities for developing key TDR features. Four TDR capacities were identified: building TDR ownership, openness and transparency for integrating divergent TDR needs, purposeful responsiveness to emergent TDR needs and navigating institutional realities and TDR ambitions. The approach presented may serve as stepping stone for the TDR community to further the conversation on (the impact of) inclusive, reflexive and responsive research.

A survey on the Washington Consensus and the Beijing Model: reconciling development perspectives

Reconciling the two dominant development models of the Washington Consensus (WC) and Beijing Model (BM) remains a critical challenge in the literature. The challenge is even more demanding when emerging development paradigms like the Liberal Institutional Pluralism (LIP) and New Structural Economics (NSE) schools have to be integrated. While the latter has recognized both State and market failures but failed to provide a unified theory, the former has left the challenging concern of how institutional diversity matter in the development process. We synthesize perspectives from recently published papers on development and Sino-African relations in order to present the relevance of both the WC and BM in the long-term and short-run respectively. While the paper postulates for a unified theory by reconciling the WC and the BM to complement the NSE, it at the same time presents a case for economic rights and political rights as short-run and long-run development priorities respectively. By attempting to reconcile the WC with the BM, the study contributes at the same to macroeconomic NSE literature of unifying a development theory and to the LIP literature on institutional preferences with stages of development. Hence, the proposed reconciliation takes into account the structural and institutional realities of nations at different stages of the process of development.

Understanding the Baby-Friendly Hospital Initiative: A Multidisciplinary Analysis

In the United States, roughly one in four births occurs in a certified Baby-Friendly hospital. This paper offers a multidisciplinary perspective on the Baby-Friendly Hospital Initiative (BFHI), including empirical, normative, and historical perspectives. Our analysis is novel in tracing how medical practices of “quality improvement,” which have received little attention in breastfeeding literature, may have shaped the BFHI. Ultimately, we demonstrate that a rich understanding of the BFHI can be obtained by tracing how norms of gender/motherhood interact with, and are supplemented by, other normative, historical, and institutional realities. We conclude with suggestions for practical revisions to the BFHI.

Collective Production and Marketing of Quality Potato Seed: Experiences from Two Cooperatives in Chencha, Ethiopia

In spite of many initiatives to set up community or farmer-group-based seed production, there is little empirical evidence about the group functioning in producing and marketing quality seed. This article therefore aims to contribute to better understanding of the process and practice of seed potato cooperatives’ formation and operation in Chencha, Ethiopia. Our study specifically focused on why and how farmer groups organize, produce and market quality seed potato. We collected primary data from two seed potato cooperatives in three phases through interviews, focus group discussions, and field assessment and store inventories on bacterial wilt incidence. We found that the support to the establishing of the two seed potato cooperatives focused more on improving the members’ seed potato production capacity and less on building good governance in the seed chain. The experiences showed the tensions between prescriptive rules, collective action and individual interests which made it very hard to maintain quality seed standards and friendship at the same time. In general, the root of having weak seed cooperatives may not be the lack of intent towards building durable farmer groups. Rather, development practitioners did not take the set-up of strong farmer groups as an evolving process, which continually engages in diagnosis and responds to the emerging social as well as material challenges. The set-up of farmer-group-based seed production, therefore, needs to shift from ‘standard production models’ to an evolving model: an open and flexible model guided by trials, challenges and existing socio-technical and institutional realities.

Conditioned Entrepreneurialism: Strategic Responses of Universities in Latvia and Norway

Drawing on comparative data from five universities in Latvia and Norway, this article examines universities’ strategic responses to a policy environment that calls for more entrepreneurial approaches in organizing research activity in higher education. This study concludes that strategic responses of universities to pressures for entrepreneurialism vary not only depending on the national policy context but also depending on the institution’s profile. While universities in this study rarely defy some of the key elements of entrepreneurialism as proposed in the policy domains, their strategic responses are conditioned by local institutional realities.

The Role of Language Policy Documents in the Internationalisation of Multilingual Higher Education: An Exploratory Corpus-Based Study

Using corpus methods, this study explores the role of Language Policy (LP) documents in the internationalisation process of Spanish universities. It aims at understanding how non-Anglophone universities integrate English and local languages in the functions of education, research, and administration. Content analysis was used for the identification of key themes, and discourse analysis examined how those themes were textually expressed. Consistent with previous literature, this study shows that relevant strategic areas of LP deal with training, regulation, accreditation, and support measures. Results also highlight the role played by institutions in LP and the presence of language hierarchies between English and local languages. The discussion of these findings leads to further inquiry of mismatches between top-down institutional expectations and bottom-up realities regarding the design and implementation of institutional policies.

Training translator trainers: An introduction

ABSTRACTThis special issue is devoted to training translator trainers, a remarkably neglected field of inquiry given the strong interest shown in translation pedagogy since translation studies first emerged as a discipline. The very term ‘trainer’ belies the complexity of roles and demands that these educators have to fulfil, some of which is captured in the range and depth of the articles contained in this issue. The first three contributions span the synergetic potential of practical, research-oriented and pedagogical skills in translator educators’ competence profiles, mismatches between educators’ beliefs and practices, and how learning, teaching and doing research can be combined to enhance self-efficacy beliefs. They are followed by five case studies which describe and investigate teaching practices designed to develop students’ assessment, digital and information literacy as well as their multimodal audiodescription and audiovisual translation skills. By presenting practices that educators might wish to emulate or adapt to their own institutional realities, the contributions to this issue reflect past approaches to educating the educators; but they also represent a decisive first step towards broadening and deepening the sporadic work previously done on what translator educators (should) do, how they (should) teach and how they (should) develop.

Institutions, infrastructures, and data friction – Reforming secondary use of health data in Finland

New data-driven ideas of healthcare have increased pressures to reform existing data infrastructures. This article explores the role of data governing institutions during a reform of both secondary health data infrastructure and related legislation in Finland. The analysis elaborates on recent conceptual work on data journeys and data frictions, connecting them to institutional and regulatory issues. The study employs an interpretative approach, using interview and document data. The results show the stark contrast between the goals of open and Big Data inspired reforms and the existing institutional realities. The multiple tensions that emerged during the process indicate how data frictions emanate to the institutional level, and how mundane data practices and institutional dynamics are intertwined. The article argues that in the Finnish case, public institutions acted as sage-guards of public interest, preventing more controversial parts from passing. Finally, it argues that initiating regulatory and infrastructural reforms simultaneously was beneficial for solving the tensions of the initiative and analysing either side separately would have produced misleading accounts of the overall initiative. The results highlight the benefits of analysing institutional dynamics and data practices as connected issues.

Towards an Institutional First Amendment

First Amendment doctrine has traditionally been carved along conceptual rather than institutional lines. Legal categories like public forum, content-neutral, and defamation have dominated the doctrine, with the general understanding being that it was the nature of the speech or the nature of the restriction that determined protection, as opposed to the nature of some institution in which communication or its restriction took place. First Amendment doctrine has been reluctant to take much notice of pre-legal institutional categories, such as press, universities, and libraries, but allowing the increased use of such institutional realities in the design of First Amendment doctrine may well produce a First Amendment doctrine with far fewer anomalies and much greater utility.

Institutionalising gender equity on campuses: mapping patriarchal ruling relations surrounding the gender equity education act in Taiwan

ABSTRACT Feminist scholars and activists have been lobbying for legislation against sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) in Taiwan since the 1980s, which has resulted in many laws being enacted or modified from the 1990s to the 2000s. The Gender Equity Education Act (GEEA) provides a code of practice to address SGBV on campuses that has been implemented for more than a decade. This study used Institutional Ethnography to explore the ruling relations surrounding the institution of the GEEA in universities. Beginning from the standpoint of the case coordinators, this research expands from frontline workers’ experiential accounts to the institutional realities ruled by universities’ local administrative systems. Contrary to feminist commendation for merging gender equity into patriarchal campus systems through legislation, this article explicates how the administrative system subordinates SGBV experiences and frontline workers’ knowledge to a modernised form of Confucian patriarchy.

Corporate social responsibility of Islamic and conventional banks

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to compare the sustainability practices of Islamic and conventional banks, with the aim of evaluating whether their Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) strategies converge or diverge in response to formal and informal institutions in an emerging country.Design/methodology/approachDrawing on institutional theory, this study contextualizes the competitive scenario through the National Business System (NBS) framework, and showcases the CSR strategies employed by large conventional and Islamic banks in Turkey. CSR patterns are examined from different angles such as motivations, strategy, actions and institutional results.FindingsWithin the same institutional environment, Islamic and non-Islamic banks combine convergent and divergent models to accommodate institutional realities in their CSR policies. Islamic banks exhibit an implicit commitment to CSR that is mostly based on informal institutions, whereas conventional banks use explicit CSR strategies as a means to fill the voids in formal institutions. In addition, philanthropy-oriented CSR prevails in Islamic banks, as opposed to the CSR actions associated with core business that are followed by conventional banks.Social implicationsAn increased focus on formal institutions and explicit CSR actions by Islamic banks may further contribute to social well-being in emerging countries.Originality/valueThis study contributes to the paucity of research, from an institutional perspective, related to CSR practices amongst Islamic and conventional banks in emerging countries.

El derecho a «no obedecer los mandatos de los príncipes». Los valores republicanos en la Europa Moderna (s. XVI-XVII)

Monarquía y república se han convertido en los últimos años en dos palabras que esconden realidades institucionales mucho más complementarias de lo que habitualmente se ha pensado. En ocasiones algunas monarquías fueron consideradas «repúblicas urbanas» y en otros casos, las repúblicas fueron criticadas por estar formadas por pequeños absolutistas locales. Más allá de los nombres, resulta necesario reflexionar sobre los valores que estos modelos políticos defendían. Es desde esta perspectiva que quizá se puede entender mejor que en ambos sistemas, con cierta frecuencia se defendían ideas de estado semejantes, en las que la defensa de la ley, el bien común y el gobierno de muchos se convertían en valores fundamentales.Recibido: 02 julio 2018 Aceptado: 05 septiembre 2018 Publicación en línea: 27 febrero 2019

Being Accountable and Resultant Stakeholder Confidence in the Era of the Decolonisation of the University

Today's higher education landscape can best be described as unpredictability. This places university governing councils in critical places to begin to think deeply in terms of forms positionality to provide effective governance. For instance, in the South African higher education scenario currently, there are urgent calls for university decolonisation as such university governing bodies have to show that they are on top of the game through demonstrating to their stakeholders that have in place a responsive habitus that supports stakeholder accountability and confidence in these times. This paper examines the relationship between stakeholder accountability and confidence in institutional values that underpin effective governance. Consequently, this paper was developed from a research project that looked at the role of the university councils in bringing about good governance in the former historically black South African universities grappling with such institutional realities. Utilizing the notion of micro-politics developed from the concept of cultures derived from a multi-theoretical approach, the paper examines the framing of good university governance by governing bodies. Data for this study was collected from institutional documentary sources in the public domain, interviews and surveys. This paper ends with suggestions of governance practices that would assist the university councils grappling with such institutional contexts to provide good governance and possibilities for further research.

Between Defectological Narratives and Institutional Realities: The "Mentally Retarded" Child in the Soviet Union of the 1930s.

This article analyzes the gap between the defectological narrative of care and the reality of institutional life for children with learning disabilities in the Soviet Union of the 1930s. It shows that, under Stalin, the Soviet discipline of defectology entailed a promise of correction and social integration that aligned well with the official rhetoric of triumphant socialism and that incorporated new, specific ideological meanings into its long-standing narrative of care. I also show that the defectological narrative was rarely realized in practice due to not only scarce material resources but also a profound reversal of defectological and Marxist conceptions of labor. By analyzing the disconnect between rhetoric and reality in the treatment of "mentally retarded" children in prewar Stalinism, this article contributes to a deeper understanding of the Soviet system and ideology of care.