Mutual Monitoring Research Articles

Bridging Theory and Practice: Applying Ostrom’s Law to Real-World Resource Management

This article aims to address the practical application of Elinor Ostrom's contributions to resolve issues related to collective action in three key areas: (1) the establishment of institutions, (2) adherence to collective obligations, and (3) mutual monitoring. The article explores the appropriate ways to implement Ostrom's theories across different regions and communities. The discussion begins by outlining Ostrom's significant contribution to economic theory, and this contribution is often referred to as "Ostrom's Law." This principle posits that a resource arrangement that works in practice can work in theory, challenging the prevailing belief that common-pool resources are inherently mismanaged and require either centralized regulation or privatization. The article further examines the potential for developing a practical model for future collective, coordinated actions, which would incorporate both the strengths and limitations of Ostrom's economic theory. Five models for the creation of new collective agreements, as proposed in Ostrom’s works are analyzed, alongside practical examples from countries such as Spain, Philippines, Nepal, and Turkey, where Ostrom's principles have been effectively applied in the management of natural resources. Ostrom's analytical methods and her conclusions regarding collective action theory hold significant value for developing practical tools for direct implementation, particularly in contexts of rapid development, such as those faced by nations, organizations, and smaller collectives. The methodology in 'Bridging Theory and Practice: Applying Ostrom’s Law to Real-World Resource Management' combines qualitative case studies, comparative analysis, and theoretical modeling to explore the practical application of Elinor Ostrom's theories of collective action and management.

Who takes the lead: Synergistic emission reduction effects of proactive government and efficient market in atmospheric pollution mitigation

In environmental protection, government and market forces must work together. However, existing literature often separates the two and discusses their roles independently. Therefore, this study incorporates both the market and government into a unified analytical framework. It redefines government force as environmental regulation and market force as allocation efficiency in environmental protection. The study empirically examines the synergistic emission reduction effects of active government and efficient market on air pollution, using data from 272 prefectural-level cities in China from 2003 to 2019. The results show: (1) Both government and market interventions can significantly reduce air pollution levels, and their combination achieves a synergistic emission reduction effect.(2) Within this synergy, government intervention remains dominant, while the market plays a supportive role. (3) Analyzing the heterogeneous effects under different scenarios reveals that collaboration and mutual monitoring between the government and the market can effectively counteract the adverse effects of economic policy uncertainty and corruption on the environment. Furthermore, when a single entity undertakes environmental protection, it may encounter issues of diminishing effectiveness over time. However, the synergistic effects of government and market cooperation can mitigate these challenges. (4) The synergy exhibits a threshold effect based on the varying strengths of government and market forces. (5) Public participation enhances the synergistic emission reduction effect of government and market, acting as a vital complement to their environmental protection efforts. This study provides new empirical evidence on the synergistic effect of current environmental protection measures in improving air pollution control.

Third-party arbitration and forgiving strategies increase cooperation when perception errors are common.

Humans cooperate in groups in which mutual monitoring is common, and this provides the possibility of third-party arbitration. Third-party arbitration stabilizes reciprocity in at least two ways: first, when it is accurate, it reduces the frequency of misunderstandings resulting from perception errors, and second, even when it is inaccurate, it provides a public signal that allows pairs to align their expectations about how to behave after errors occur. Here, we describe experiments that test for these two effects. We find that in an iterated, sequential Prisoner's Dilemma game with errors, players with the highest average payoffs are those who make use of third-party arbitration and who also employ forgiving strategies. The combination of these two behaviours reduces the detrimental effects of errors on reciprocity, resulting in more cooperation.

From Surveillance to Toutveillance: Evaluating the Social Impacts of Different Monitoring Paradigms

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">This article explores the evolution and impacts of different monitoring paradigms: traditional surveillance, sousveillance, and toutveillance. Traditional surveillance, characterized by hierarchical observation from an authoritative entity, often results in power imbalances, privacy invasion, and social inequality. In response, sousveillance monitoring by individuals of those in power emerges as a countermeasure, aiming to democratize oversight but still facing legal and ethical challenges. Toutveillance, which promotes mutual monitoring among all parties, is presented as a potential solution to these issues, leveraging technology such as body cameras to enhance transparency, accountability, and reduce discriminatory practices. The article argues that while each paradigm has its merits and limitations, toutveillance offers a more balanced approach to address the complexities of modern surveillance, privacy concerns, and social justice.</p>

Value Creation, Value Appropriation, and Cooperation in Team Production

We propose a theoretical framework and develop a game-theoretical analysis to advance our understanding of the cooperation dilemma in team production. We conceptualize team production as a process where productive and appropriative activities coexist, shifting the focus from whether team members cooperate to what type of cooperative behavior they are willing to adopt. Depending on whether members cooperate to create value and compete to appropriate value, we can observe scenarios of full, partial, and no cooperation. After characterizing member behavior in the different scenarios, we study which form of cooperation can be sustained through repeated interaction, mutual monitoring, and reciprocity. To do so, we allow for different deviations from cooperation which are then accompanied by different reactions according to an equivalent retaliation strategy. Our focus is on how member behavior and incentives to cooperate relate to the size of the team. We also introduce conceptual elements that describe team production in organizational teams as well as inter-organizational relationships.

The Impact of Executive Ethnic Diversity on Real Earnings Management

SYNOPSIS This study examines the impact of the ethnic diversity of executives on real earnings management (REM) by using 21,217 firm-year observations for 2,209 U.S. public firms between 1993 and 2020. Social identity theory and top management team research suggest executive diversity enhances mutual monitoring and subordinate executives’ independence from the CEO, thus incentivizing subordinate executives to curb CEOs’ opportunistic financial reporting. The empirical results indicate a negative relation between executive ethnic diversity and REM. This result holds after controlling for various characteristics of executives and firms, as well as for potential endogeneity by using instrumental variable regressions and entropy balancing technique. Cross-sectional tests show that the effect is stronger when each executive has a greater influence on the firm’s operating decisions and when the firm has better internal corporate governance. Collectively, our evidence suggests that executive ethnic diversity strengthens the internal governance of U.S. public firms. JEL Classifications: M41; M48.

Getting ready forreduced donor dependency: the co-financing offamily planning commodities.

Family planning (FP) programmes in low and lower-middle income countries are confronting the dual impact of reduced external donor commitments and stagnant or reduced domestic financing, worsened by economic consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic. Co-financing-a donor-government agreement to jointly fund aspects of a programme, with transition towards the government assuming increasing responsibility for total cost-can be a powerful tool to help build national ownership, fiscal sustainability and programme visibility. Using Gavi's successful co-financing model as reference, the current paper draws out a set of key considerations for developing policies on co-financing of FP commodities in resource-poor settings. Macroeconomic and contextual sensitivities must be incorporated while classifying countries and determining co-financing obligations-using the actual GNI per capita on a scale or sovereign credit ratings, in conjunction with programmatic indicators, may be preferred. It is also important for policies to allow sufficiently long time for countries to transition-dependent on the country context, may be up to 10 years as allowed under the US Agency for International Development FP graduation policy and flexibility to revisit the terms following externalities that can influence the fiscal space for health. Incentivizing new domestic financing to pay for co-financing dues is critical, so as not to displace government funding from related health or social sector programs. Pragmatic ways to ensure country compliance can include engaging both the ministries of health and finance as co-signatories to identify and address known administrative and fiscal challenges; establishing dedicated co-financing account with the finance ministry; and instituting a mutual monitoring mechanism. Lastly, the overall process of policymaking can benefit from an alignment of goals and interests of the key development partners.

Keeping them honest? Broad‐based employee ownership and earnings management

AbstractResearch Question/IssueDoes broad‐based employee ownership limit accrual earnings management?Research Findings/InsightsI run a series of random effect and fixed effect models on a sample of S&P 1500 firms between 2008 and 2019 to show that managers at employee‐owned firms manipulate earnings less than managers at nonemployee‐owned firms. My findings suggest that employee ownership enhances financial transparency and limits the opportunities for managers to misrepresent firm performance.Theoretical/Academic ImplicationsThis study develops and tests theory on employee ownership as a form of internal corporate governance. Equity incentives for executives are typically thought to reduce agency costs. The findings here suggest awarding equity incentives broadly, in which the majority of employees receive equity stakes, may be a more effective method of reducing agency costs.Practitioner/Policy ImplicationsEarnings management and intentional financial misreporting are often a result of siloed information within firms. Broad‐based employee ownership is generally associated with enhanced information flows through greater mutual monitoring and information sharing. Corporate governors interested in reducing managerial malfeasance may find that widely awarding equity to employees is more effective than financially incentivizing individual managers to act in the firm's interests.

Frustrated opinion dynamics on real networks and its predictors

Indirect reciprocity is a type of social dynamics in which the attitude of an individual toward another individual is either cooperative or antagonistic, and it can change over time through their actions and mutual monitoring. This opinion dynamics is found to be frustrating in certain edge density regimes on random graphs when all the components adopt the Kandori rule, which is one of the norms of indirect reciprocity. In this study, we conducted an exhaustive analysis of so-called “leading-eight” norms of indirect reciprocity dynamics and found that three of them (the Kandori and other two rules) keep the opinion dynamics frustrated on random graphs. We investigated the frustrated opinion dynamics of these three norms on real acquaintance networks and observed that the degree of frustration of the system can be inferred when the network properties such as the number of triangular connections and number of quads are properly taken into account. This study also reveals that the closeness centrality of a triangular representation is a good predictor of the degree of local frustration. Furthermore, it is also found that better prediction is achieved when we do not consider all the reachable triads in the calculation of a focal triad’s closeness centrality. This result suggests that it is sufficient to predict the opinion dynamics by considering only the proximity triads within a certain observation radius from that triad. This finding may facilitate the analysis of real-world cooperative relationships consisting of a vast number of triads.

Mechanisms of alignment: shared control, social cognition and metacognition.

In dialogue, speakers process a great deal of information, take and give the floor to each other, and plan and adjust their contributions on the fly. Despite the level of coordination and control that it requires, dialogue is the easiest way speakers possess to come to similar conceptualizations of the world. In this paper, we show how speakers align with each other by mutually controlling the flow of the dialogue and constantly monitoring their own and their interlocutors' way of representing information. Through examples of conversation, we introduce the notions of shared control, meta-representations of alignment and commentaries on alignment, and show how they support mutual understanding and the collaborative creation of abstract concepts. Indeed, whereas speakers can share similar representations of concrete concepts just by mutually attending to a tangible referent or by recalling it, they are likely to need more negotiation and mutual monitoring to build similar representations of abstract concepts. This article is part of the theme issue 'Concepts in interaction: social engagement and inner experiences'.

The Effects of Openness of Internal Reporting and Shared Interest with an Employee on Managerial Collusion and Subsequent Cooperation*

ABSTRACTCollusion between managers who share private information represents a significant control concern for firms. Prior research suggests that mutual monitoring contracts that incentivize honest reporting do not prevent all collusion, making it important to understand how elements of the control environment may facilitate collusion, as well as how control choices—and collusion itself—affect subsequent behavior within the firm. Results of two experiments show that the frequency of collusion between managers in a repeated‐interaction setting is greatest when one can view the other's reports before making their own (“open internal reporting”) and slack obtained from misreporting is shared with a non‐reporting employee (“shared interest”). Moreover, although open (versus closed) internal reporting increases collusion in a single‐shot setting with or without a residual claimant to managers' budget reports being present, neither openness alone nor shared interest alone increases collusion in a repeated‐interaction setting. Results further suggest that collusion improves managers' perceptions of autonomy and group identification, resulting in greater cooperation on a subsequent task and potentially reducing the costs of some collusion to the extent such cooperation benefits the firm. Finally, open internal reporting worsens managers' perceptions of autonomy and group identification which, for managers who did not previously engage in collusion, leads to less cooperation on a subsequent task. In total, these results highlight to firms that the costs of collusion in repeated‐interaction settings frequently found in practice may be greatest when the common control choices of open internal reporting and shared interest are made in tandem, and that open internal reporting may carry another unintended cost in the form of lower cooperation on other tasks.

Evaluating Team Metrics in Cooperative Video Games

This research aims to understand how cooperative game features lead to teamwork behaviors as a step in developing gamified testbeds where human-human and human-autonomy teaming can be evaluated. Multiplayer video games incorporate features that encourage cooperation and interdependency, making them potential task environments for evaluating team metrics. This study analyzed three cooperative video games through annotating play sessions by tracking cooperative features and teamwork behavioral markers. The results show how cooperative features lead to a high frequency of teamwork behaviors, including coordination, planning, backup behavior, and mutual monitoring. Additionally, game features such as complementary and shared obstacles and puzzles, community survival, and team spirit led to the highest frequencies of behavioral markers. This study can serve as an initial assessment to develop a list of requirements for the gamification of teaming testbeds that can support objective quantification of team measurement.

공동체주도 발전 사례연구: 홍천군 열목어마을

The purpose of this study is to explore the potentiality of community-driven development through case study. The case selected in this study is Lenok Village in Hongcheon-gun, Gangwon-do, which is alienated from public services due to its geographical isolation and is regulated for regional development by environment-related laws. Community-driven development in Lenok Village began from resolving the inconvenience caused by the absence of village common facilities. Along with obtaining public funding projects from government ministries, consensus among members about the identity of the community, as suggested by Merchant (2010), has appeared. Through these efforts, Lenok Village has improved the core elements of social capital and has continuously improved economic, cultural and social services.
 The implications from the case of Lenok Village are suggested as follows. First, the formation and agreement of community identity in community development allows a community to adhere to clear goals and directions, thus leading to consistent and voluntary participation. Second, the composition of village organizations, such as closed network proposed by Coleman(1988), becomes the basis for opinions and participation among various organizations in decision-making and participation, thereby resulting in securing transparency, openness, mutual monitoring and expectations, and easing conflicts in advance. Third, social harmony and solidarity among community members can be strengthened only when not only economic but also social and cultural aspects are secured in community-driven development.

Closing the loop - The human role in artificial intelligence for education.

Recent advancements in artificial intelligence make its use in education more likely. In fact, existing learning systems already utilize it for supporting students’ learning or teachers’ judgments. In this perspective article, we want to elaborate on the role of humans in making decisions in the design and implementation process of artificial intelligence in education. Therefore, we propose that an artificial intelligence-supported system in education can be considered a closed-loop system, which includes the steps of (i) data recording, (ii) pattern detection, and (iii) adaptivity. Besides the design process, we also consider the crucial role of the users in terms of decisions in educational contexts: While some implementations of artificial intelligence might make decisions on their own, we specifically highlight the high potential of striving for hybrid solutions in which different users, namely learners or teachers, are provided with information from artificial intelligence transparently for their own decisions. In light of the non-perfect accuracy of decisions of both artificial intelligence-based systems and users, we argue for balancing the process of human- and AI-driven decisions and mutual monitoring of these decisions. Accordingly, the decision-making process can be improved by taking both sides into account. Further, we emphasize the importance of contextualizing decisions. Potential erroneous decisions by either machines or humans can have very different consequences. In conclusion, humans have a crucial role at many stages in the process of designing and using artificial intelligence for education.

What activities reduce plastic waste the most? – The path to a circular economy for Japan’s manufacturing industry

In recent years, plastic waste has received increasing attention, though most studies on it have investigated only household plastic waste. In Japan, the amount of household plastic waste is approximately equal to that generated by the manufacturing process in Japan. Therefore, we focus on the change in plastic waste emissions from manufacturing from 2004 to 2018. Following the novel method of Levinson (2015), we decompose plastic waste emissions into scale effects, composition effects, and (in)direct technique effects. This first application of this method for waste generation shows that the technique effect contributes the most to reducing pollution emissions, whereas the composition effect has a very limited impact. These results contrast with those of previous studies (Brunel (2017) and Cole and Zhang (2019)) on CO2 emissions and provide new insights into the characteristics of plastic waste generation. The reason for the increase in technique effect despite the absence of strict emission control regulations targeting industrial waste is that Japanese environmental policies are often promoted in a manner that involves all stakeholders, creating conditions for successful voluntary agreements through mutual monitoring.

Female executives and firm value: the moderating effect of co-CEO power gaps

PurposeThis study aims to examine the moderating effect of co-CEO power gaps on the impact of female executives on firm value. Several studies have suggested that female executives have a positive effect on improving firm value. The authors would like to examine whether this relationship changes because of co-CEO power gaps.Design/methodology/approachFor empirical analysis, 426 non-financial companies are selected from companies listed in the Korean securities market from 2013 to 2018. The relationships between dummy variables of female CEOs, outside directors, registered executives and Tobin’s Q are examined, and the moderating effect of co-CEO power gaps that scored various factors is verified.FindingsThe results of this study show that female executives have a positive impact on firm value, but the larger the co-CEOs power gap is, the weaker that impact is.Practical implicationsThe mutual monitoring of co-CEOs substitutes for governance mechanisms, but if there are power gaps between co-CEOs, then the leadership cannot be equitably shared and the mutual monitoring effect can be weakened.Originality/valueThis study contributes to research on corporate executives by analyzing the relationship between female executives related to shared leadership and firm values in Korean companies. Especially, this study finds that the role of female executives is differentiated according to co-CEO power gaps by using the CEO power index that reflects the characteristics of Korean corporate governance.

Significant social movement as a critical event: The impact of journalists’ mutual attention on the differentiation between traditional and alternative media in the field

This paper intends to investigate how the differentiation between traditional and alternative media is reinforced through the mutual attention among journalists, based on field theory. It further argues that a significant social movement can serve as a critical event which intensifies mutual monitoring among journalists. Focusing on the anti-extradition law amendment bill movement in Hong Kong, this study conducted interviews with 20 reporters from traditional and alternative media. The analysis revealed two mechanisms of mutual monitoring: (a) direct monitoring at protest sites and (b) monitoring published works. Such monitoring activities reinforce the differentiation between traditional and alternative media through encouraging boundary work exercised by traditional media journalists and providing cues for alternative media reporters to cover important perspectives which are missing in the mainstream coverage.

‘Right, already brewing there’: Arriving to the staff breakroom and beginning interaction with a co-present colleague

This study investigates beginnings of dyadic encounters between acquainted persons in a ‘semi-public’ space, namely, staff breakrooms of Finnish work communities. Drawing on video data and using ethnomethodological conversation analysis as the method, we examine the coordinated vocal-bodily exchanges that participants carry out under close mutual monitoring as they establish co-presence and initiate interaction (through greetings and registerings) while also engaging in other, situated, break-relevant activities as part of an oriented-to, established routine of beginning, and being on, a break from work. We show how participants skillfully manage their simultaneous involvements in these activities, and how the specific vocal-bodily practices by which participants open their encounters in the breakroom index their orientation to each other as ‘familiars’ and to their encounters as highly routinized, recurring and ‘expected’ (rather than as ‘special’ or ‘not-everyday’) occurrences. Data are in Finnish with English translation.

Digital localisation in an illicit market space: interactional creation of a psychedelic assemblage in a darknet community of exchange.

Sociology of drugs and digital sociology-albeit for different reasons-need the analysis of interactions, an approach underdeveloped in current scholarship. We address this gap by providing a specific analytical framework for the analysis of digital interactions which enables an ethnomethodological account of micro-interactional dynamics within a cryptomarket: an anonymous darknet market of illicit drugs. As a case study we chose the'PsychForumMarket' which is unusual in thatit operates as a forum based market space and explicitly rejects centralised technical market solutions such as escrow and encryption systems. Instead, it emphasises personal relationships between buyers and vendors as the basis of trust.Hence it forms a community of exchange, both material and cultural. The data were collected through a process of manual scraping from the forum from 2017 to 2020. The data was purposefully sampled to construct a 'thick data' set, and analysed thematically to examine the micro interactional turn taking, sanctioning and norming processes by which the market culture is normalized and embedded. This market is a laboratory to investigate the constitutive nature of digital group interactions. Due to the very nature of this market the disciplining processcannotliewith external authorities. Interactions between community members are permeated with mutual monitoring and policing. We find that in and through digital communication aparticular culture emerges to which individuals who wish to join this community have to ascribe.We refer to this particular culture as a 'psychedelic assemblage,' i.e., a local constellation of cultural constructs which frames the experience of drug using and trading. Our investigation reveals the constitutive methods which enable the norming of members' practices and underpin the emergence of a shared lifeworld which in turn ensures the operability of this cryptomarket.

I cry, therefore I am: An anthropological study of babies' interactions

Leaving home to attend a day care centre can be a major transition in a baby's life. Based on ethnographic research in a Brazilian day care centre with 21 babies between 4 and 11 months of age, this study demonstrates that crying is a crucial communication resource used in co-presence with peers. Furthermore, crying constitutes a form of cooperative action in interactions among babies within a peer group who cannot yet speak. Analysis of three interactive episodes involving babies of different ages demonstrated that crying is related to mutual monitoring and morality. The paper contributes to research in anthropology, a field that often mistakenly associates language with culture, and traditionally has little interest in babies.