Instrumental Perspective Research Articles

COORDINATION POVERTY ALLEVIATION PROGRAM, AN ANALYSIS BASED ON INSTRUMENTAL AND INSTITUTIONAL PERSPECTIVE

Nowadays, the government has launched various programs for the poor people as a part of the poverty alleviation program. The launch of the various programs involved many parties so that coordination became one of the problems in the poverty prevention program policy in Indonesia. This research was aimed to analyse the coordination of poverty prevention program in Garut as one of the poorest districts in West Java Province. The research used qualitative methods. Data were collected through primary data and secondary data collection. Primary data was collected by interviews and focus group discussions. Secondary data was collected by a review of the literature and data sharing from magazines, reports, news media and others. As the analytical tool, it used the coordination perspectives of Cristensen and Laegreid which adduce the theoretical perspectives related with coordination between organizations, namely instrumental and institutional.The results of the study showed that coordination between organizations in the poverty prevention program is still not good and still has several factors that become obstacles. Suggestions that can be proposed are the need of leadership development that is collegial collectives. Another suggested thing is the need of common arena development that is aimed to be communication instrument, vision equalization, mission and objectives. It is also aimed to make more integrated program planning from each organization so that the coordination inhibiting factors can be eliminated. 
 Keywords: Poverty Prevention, Coordination Between Organization, Instrumental Perspective, Institutional Perspective

Appreciative inquiry for community engagement in Indonesia rural communities

This article highlights three main issues that challenge the ideal concept of engagement, which are the domination of instrumental perspectives; the lack of global inclusiveness due to ethnocentricity and western orientation of engagement studies; and the domination of post-positivistic paradigm and quantitative research approach. The development of micro-hydro power in Kulon Progo Regency, Indonesia, is chosen as the case study. This study applies an exploratory case study design, involving three hamlets with different level of micro-hydro power development. Through an analysis of the implementation of appreciative inquiry technique for community engagement, this article offers social constructionism and qualitative approach towards studies of engagement. This article also offers public-centric and non-western experiences as a response to the criticism towards organic-centric and western approach of engagement studies.

Maritime security strategies from a Gender Perspective: Implications for United Nations SDG 5 implementation

Maritime security strategies and their associated action plans are instruments that guide the policies and directives of states and international organizations in the maritime sector. This directly impacts the empowerment of women and how the discriminations they are subject to, including violence and exploitation, are addressed. However, a gender perspective of such instruments has not yet been used to analyse these policies. Within this context, this paper looks at the Spanish National Maritime Security Strategy and the European Union Maritime Security Strategy from a gender perspective as a case study. Both are examined from a three-pronged approach that aims to determine the implications for the implementation of SDG 5.1, 5.2 and 5 C. The first analysis concentrates on their texts and action plans. Since both are sectoral strategies focused specifically on maritime security, but interplay with security strategies of a more generalized scope, the relationship with the Spanish National Security Strategy and the Global Strategy for the European Union’s Foreign and Security Policy is also assessed. Furthermore, the gender dimension of additional maritime security strategies is considered within the European Union and other regional areas in order to have a comparative vision. This work concludes by offering a means of incorporating or improving a gendered perspective in future versions of the Spanish and European maritime security strategies, which can also be applied across different maritime security strategies worldwide.

Who is Engaged and Why? Testing an Instrumental Perspective on Stakeholder Engagement

From an instrumental perspective, public administrators are expected to analyze their environment. They are also expected to take proactive steps to manage environmental impacts. These actions are intended to ensure that public administrators are able to achieve their goals. Part of analyzing their environment involves the engagement of stakeholders. Stakeholder engagement is believed to provide public administrators with insights into how they can better evaluate innovative policy options that allow them to overcome limited administrative capacity. Stakeholder engagement is also believed to allow public administrators with opportunities to mobilize support in light of political opposition. The purpose of this article is to test these claims within the policy area of municipal contracting out. In the article, we find strong support for these ideas. Thus, our findings should inform public administration theories about the role and importance of stakeholder engagement.

Online stakeholder dialogue:quo vadis? – An empirical analysis in German-speaking countries

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to present an empirical analysis of CSR communication posted on the websites of 70 companies listed on the main stock markets in German-speaking countries, the so-called DACH region. The results of this analysis offer answers to questions that are currently being discussed in the CSR literature, namely, on the importance attributed to stakeholder information vs stakeholder dialogues in (online) CSR communication.Design/methodology/approachUsing a quantitative content analysis, the study examines the extent to which leading German, Austrian and Swiss companies are meeting communication and CSR-related requirements, especially regarding stakeholder dialogue and overall stakeholder involvement.FindingsDrawing on Morsing and Schultz’s (2006) theoretical insights concerning stakeholder engagement, this study shows that current CSR communication primarily provides information for stakeholders and contains only a few elements of consultation with stakeholders. In addition, no elements indicating stakeholder involvement in decision processes were found. Data analysed in 2004, 2007, 2012 and 2016 for the German DAX companies allowed for comparisons over time. A closer examination of these data revealed increasing professionalism in CSR communication, especially in the provision and presentation of information. Regarding information clarity and opportunities for dialogue, however, the results show low progress. The criteria set developed for the study provides guidance for how companies can improve their CSR communication, but the findings on the long-term slow progress in stakeholder involvement, in some aspects even a decrease in dialogue, also raise questions about the (perceived) use of online CSR dialogues for companies.Research limitations/implicationsCommunication is viewed from a strategic instrumental perspective. The empirical analysis focusses on the technical possibilities offered by the internet to make CSR communications and reporting available and understandable to stakeholders and to promote dialogue with and among stakeholders.Originality/valueBy focussing on online CSR communication in the DACH region, this study contributes to the current state of research and offers several recommendations for practitioners; it particularly provides critical reflection on online stakeholder dialogues and related paradigms (constitutive vs functionalistic perspective).

Making sense of the corporate philosophy:

We find an increased interest in the concept of employee engagement within the area of organizational and corporate communication. Employee engagement is an umbrella term for a number of cognitive, emotional and physical aspects (Kahn, 1990) of relating positively to one’s work, and research within this area has mostly connected employee engagement to organizational productivity and effectiveness. In this paper, we suggest a new approach to employee engagement by relating it to employee communication and placing it within dialogue theory (Buber, 1970) combined with Bamberg’s (1997) positioning theory. Our case is a strategy meeting on the topic of how a corporate philosophy devised by top management and entitled “Business Kind2Mind” is interpreted by managers and what they view is the best way to implement the philosophy within subsidiaries. Theorizing engagement dialogically enables a shift from instrumental perspectives to a more interpretive approach in which true mutuality entails participants’ views being heard and incorporated in the corporate philosophy, and engagement is not purely about efficiency and outcome. A dialogical approach enables us to conceive of employee communication not as only upwardly or downwardly directed between manager and employee, but as interactional, with mutual change.

Correlates of Acceptance of Wealth Inequality: A Moderated Mediation Model.

Wealth inequality is a prevalent social issue. The present study focuses on acceptance of wealth inequality, and considers personal income, perceived upward mobility, and future time perspective as its antecedents, and collective action intention as its outcome. With reference to the social identity literature and socioemotional selectivity theory, we posit a conditional indirect effect of income on collective action intention through acceptance of wealth inequality: only when mobility and future time perspective are relatively high, higher income is associated with higher acceptance of wealth inequality and in turn, lower collective action intention. Moderated mediation findings, based on territory-wide phone survey data from 866 Hong Kong adults, supported this prediction. This work indicates the relevance of an individual-level instrumental perspective to the understanding of acceptance of wealth inequality as well as collective action intention.

Social values and sustainability: a retrospective view on the contribution of economics

Since the introduction of the ecosystem services (ES) concept, major discussions within sustainability sciences revolved around the values of nature. In these discussions, environmental economic valuation has been heavily criticised for falling short with regard to conceptual, ethical and methodological issues. In most cases, the critique has been limited to the realm of neoclassical economics. In particular, concerns have been voiced that economic valuation, following its individualistic and instrumental perspective, is unable to capture social values of sustainability. However, the current critique against economic theory does not account for the long traditions in economic theory dealing with social values. This is where this paper steps in: it seeks to review contributions of economic theory to the literature on social values. The aim is to shed light on theories outside neoclassical mainstream economics and to identify recurrent themes in these theories. The identified theories (among others: Kapp’s theory of social cost; Harsanyi’s utilitarianism; Sen’s theories of meta-preferences, commitment and sympathy; Buchanan’s constitutional economics; and Musgrave’s theory of merit goods) emphasise the existence of value categories that transcend individual values and narrow self-interest. Thereby, they may contribute to strengthening the theoretical foundation for the analysis and elicitation of social values of sustainability.

Impacto del concepto PLE en la literatura sobre educación: la última década

El concepto de Entorno Personal de Aprendizaje (PLE) es uno de los conceptos que ha recibido una mayor atención en los últimos años en el ámbito de la tecnología educativa. Los que estudiamos el tema asumimos —hay quien dice que de forma ingenua o acrítica— que se trata de un concepto realmente disruptivo, fundamental y que está en la base de los enfoques pedagógicos emergentes propios del momento tecno-social que nos enmarca, no solo en la faceta tecnológica-instrumental, sino también en los fundamentos mismos del proceso educativo. No obstante, poco sabemos sobre el impacto de este concepto y sus allegados en otros temas educativos no necesariamente ligados a la tecnología. A continuación, a través de una revisión de literatura sistematizada, se analiza el impacto del tema PLE en los tres principales focos temáticos de la literatura científica sobre educación de la última década: prácticas pedagógicas emergentes, aprendizaje autorregulado y desarrollo profesional docente. Se analiza si los PLE han impactado en cada uno de los temas; el nivel de importancia de ese impacto adquiere en cada uno de ellos y la forma en que se “materializa” en las diferentes temáticas. Las conclusiones de este artículo pretenden ofrecer sugerencias sobre cuál puede ser el futuro de la investigación y la práctica de un concepto que, tras algo más de diez años de su aparición en el ámbito educativo, sigue considerándose emergente.

Domestic Violence against Women in Nigeria: Economic and Legal Dimensions

Several reports reveal escalating levels of violence against women in Nigeria and around the world. This paper thus investigated domestic violence in Nigeria from the perspective of economic costs and legal instruments enacted to control the menace. The result confirms that domestic violence has severe economic cost in Nigeria ranging from cost of justice, health care services, social services, education, business and employment cost, to household and personal cost running into billions of naira. Various international and local legal instruments applicable in Nigeria have also been examined. However, the numerous gaps, inconsistent provisions and poor implementation of laws have denied women in Nigeria the protection the law can guarantee. The paper thus recommends the harmonization of all legislation related to domestic violence. All legislation be also amended to bring them in line with the human rights and gender equality requirements. Finally, Religious and traditional institutions should be co-opted to sensitize the people within their domain on the ills of violence particularly of this genre.

Corporate social responsibility in hotels: a stakeholder approach

PurposeThis study aims to examine stakeholder interests in and influence on corporate social responsibility (CSR) implementation in hotels through an instrumental stakeholder theory lens.Design/methodology/approachSemi-structured interviews with 54 managers from several sectors of the Cyprus tourism industry were undertaken using purposive sampling.FindingsThere is a dominance of supply-chain stakeholder interests which in turn outline the CSR orientation of hotels, whereas stakeholder influence, largely shaped by the interdependent, multi-faceted nature of the tourism industry, conditions the implementation of CSR in hotels. Interestingly, stakeholder influence on CSR in hotels is not corresponding to stakeholders’ perceived saliency, indicating that stakeholder analysis needs to move beyond the consideration of salient stakeholders’ interests.Research limitations/implicationsAlthough the focus of this study has been the perceptions of tourism stakeholders in Cyprus, the exploratory approach adopted in the study sets the ground for further research to consider stakeholder issues regarding CSR in hotels from an instrumental perspective. In addition, insights from this study might inform practitioners in similar destinations.Originality/valueIn encouraging a holistic approach to strategic CSR in hotels, this study contributes a framework of stakeholder roles, emanating from stakeholder responsibility and stakeholder involvement in CSR in the hotel sector that will be of interest to both academics and practitioners.

Multi-scale policy diffusion and translation in Pacific Island coastal fisheries

Multilateral consensus forged among heads of states must be value-additive and relevant at the national level to facilitate on-ground implementation. Yet, despite general optimism and advances in policy understanding, multi-scale diffusion remains a challenge with little certainty in outcomes. This study focuses on examining intermediary dynamics occurring within national policy apparatus that can influence domestic uptake of policy innovation. We analyse the anticipated spread of two supranational policies on coastal fisheries in the Pacific region – the ‘Small-Scale Fisheries Guidelines’ and ‘the New Song’ – in three countries: Kiribati, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu. Our approach combines instrumental perspectives on ‘policy coherence’ with cognitive–normative perspectives on ‘policy image’. Accordingly, we use two methods: a document-based comparison of the policies produced at different levels and interviews with national government officers in charge of policy deliberation and delivery. We find supranational-to-national policy coherence across most prescribed policy themes, except for emergent social themes such as ‘gender’ and ‘human rights–based approaches’. The views of government managers substantiate, and further augment, this finding. Crucially, managers' images (encompassing judgements, aspirations and convictions) represent personal and practical attributes involved in policy interpretation and implementation. Multi-scale policy diffusion is thus a translational process mediated by national-level staff, and managers' policy images offer nuanced and dynamic insights into why some policies are slow to take root while others take different shape to their agreed meanings. Analysts and policymakers must consider and mobilise translational approaches and policy images in order to understand and facilitate successful domestic implementation of international agreements.

The feedback-seeking behavior and individual creativity in team contexts

From the dual-motive (instrumental vs. image-based motive) perspective, we theorized and tested the contextual factor for feedback-seeking behavior from supervisor and employee creativity, and the ...

Inline Spectroscopy: From Concept to Function.

The field of applied spectroscopy is strongly dominated by publications presenting proof-of-concepts, lab set-ups, and demonstrations. In contrast, the corresponding number of commercial successes of inline spectroscopy is surprisingly lower. This article discusses inline spectroscopy from an instrumentation perspective. It is the authors' firm belief that the success of inline spectroscopy lies in the understanding of how the design and implementation of the optical instrumentation affects the data quality, and how this in turn will limit or enhance the performance of the prediction model. This article emphasizes the need for a strong, multidisciplinary design team, whose design process is rooted in first principles, to bridge the technology "valley of death" and convert research in applied spectroscopy into commercially successful solutions.

Intrinsic and instrumental perspectives to sanitation

Public health interventions are often implemented because they are a means to an end. For example, improving population-level health outcomes is a key step towards improving social and economic outcomes, too. But what is often overlooked is the fact that a given public health intervention might be the end in itself. In other words, a given intervention might be worth investing in even if there are zero returns from investing in it. This intrinsic value, however, is often overlooked. In this commentary, we look specifically at sanitation, and why the development community should motivate sanitation interventions using an intrinsic value perspective. We also extend the conversation to why there needs to be a fundamental shift away from demand-side interventions to supply-side interventions. In doing so, we hope to offer a more equitable perspective to health and development.

Inside the Buying Firm: Exploring Responses to Paradoxical Tensions in Sustainable Supply Chain Management

An instrumental perspective still dominates research on sustainable supply chain management (SSCM). As an alternative, this study presents a paradox perspective and argues that sustainability and other business aims are not always compatible, particularly in an emerging market context. Often, paradoxical tensions originate in conflicts between the socioeconomic environment of emerging market suppliers and their Western customers’ demands for both cost competitiveness and sustainability. We argue that Western buying firms can play a key role in moderating such tensions, as experienced by emerging market suppliers. Specifically, we explore how purchasing and sustainability managers within buying firms make sense of and respond to paradoxical tensions in SSCM. We conduct an in‐depth case study of a Western multinational company that sources substantially from Chinese suppliers. While we found strong evidence for a persisting instrumental perspective in the sensemaking and practices of purchasing and sustainability managers, we also observed an alternative response, primarily by sustainability managers that we labeled as “contextualizing.” Contextualizing can alleviate the tensions otherwise present in SSCM by making sustainability standards more workable in an emerging market context, and it can help individual managers to move toward paradoxical sensemaking. We outline the value of paradoxical sensemaking in bringing about changes toward “true sustainability” in SSCM.

A Case Study on Traditional Folk Arts in a Rural Community of Jidong District: from Language and Culture Life Perspective

The current research studies the language and culture life in a rural community in Jidong area with the investigation methods of questionnaire and interview. It also analyses the vitality of traditional folk arts in the community. The investigation results show that the rural community is a diglossia community with the local Chinese dialect (LCD) and the Modern Standard Chinese (MSC) as its communicative tools. The two varieties complement and compete with each other. The former is the mother tongue and the main communicative language of the community members while the latter is a language variant used by a few of the respondents in some specific communication situations. Community members hold positive attitudes towards the two language varieties but from different perspectives. They view the LCD as a nice and cordial variety from emotional perspective, while the MSC as a useful language variety from instrumental perspective. TV program and modern music are the main cultural consumption goods in the community, which are performed by the MSC. The aforementioned information indicates that there is a trend that the MSC is replacing the LCD as the daily communication tool in the community with the MSC expanding its social functions. In this language circumstance, the social space of the local folk arts related to language is getting narrower and narrower. The investigation results show that only 15.6% of the respondents often listen to or watch traditional opera, while only 13.3% can perform the local traditional opera; In addition, most of those who listen to, watch or perform the local traditional opera are the elder people. The aforementioned findings indicate that the local folk arts are in the way of getting endangered. At the last part the study attempts to put forward some strategies of protecting and developing the local traditional folk arts.

Connective Routines: How Medical Professionals Work with Safety Checklists

New standards like checklists are introduced to establish so-called “connective professionalism,” but it is difficult to work with checklists in daily circumstances. Professionals might comply with standards, but they might also neglect or resist them. By linking the sociology of professions to routine theory, we develop a relational perspective on working with standards, which is sensitive to the actual usage of standards, not so much “by” but “in-between” professionals. We analysed whether and how checklists are part of daily professional routines. Our ethnographic data show that medical professionals pragmatically cope with checklists. They “tick boxes,” but also use standards to improve case treatment, depending on the nature of cases, time pressure, and team composition. Connections between professionals not so much result from standards, but are a prerequisite for using standards. Professionals themselves rather than checklists establish collaboration, but checklists might be important devices for using “connective potential.”Various exogenous developments force professions to organize collaboration. New standards, like checklists, are introduced to reconfigure work and organize so-called ‘connective professionalism’. Despite serious efforts, it has proven difficult to incorporate these standards in daily practice. Different perspectives on the reconfiguration of professional work explain noncompliance. While implementation science employs a solely instrumental perspective, Sociology of Professions literature employs a broader social perspective mostly focusing on maintaining professional power. By combining Sociology of Professions and Routine Theory, this paper provides an analytical perspective that embraces possibilities for change of routines. A critical case in surgical care is used to empirically show how a checklist (re)creates professional routines. Our ethnographic data show that rather than the result of active professional resistance, differences between checklists and routines emerge from pragmatic coping with checklists amidst high-paced circumstances. Though deviating from the formal rule, these might be meaningful action patterns.

A Comparative Study of Language Attitudes in Hong Kong: Towards English, Cantonese and Putonghua

20 years have elapsed since Hong Kong has returned to China and the connections with Mainland China are growing in different domains. Especially, the universities in Hong Kong attracted a large number of Mainland students and the number is increasing. Therefore, it is interesting to examine the language attitudes towards English (the former British colonial language), Cantonese (the local dialect) and Putonghua (the third official language) from the perspective of local students and Mainland students. The study reported in this thesis is a quantitative investigation of 30 local students and 30 Mainland students from different disciplines at City University of Hong Kong. Their attitudes towards three languages were compared in terms of integrative orientation and instrumental orientation. The results revealed the local students hold a more integrative attitude and showed their strong loyalty to Cantonese while Mainland students showed integrative attitude and favored the use of more Putonghua in different language contexts. English was still regarded as a prestigious language from both the integrative and instrumental perspective by the local students and the Mainland students. Besides, interactional language preference between the Mainland students and the Local students was also investigated and the result showed English was the most preferable language. The findings of this study suggest Cantonese remains as a strong dialect; English still will be the linguistic capital and the pragmatic function Putonghua is developing well in Hong Kong. Results also indicate subtle transition towards Trilingualism among the university students in Hong Kong.

EU external policy coherence in the trade-foreign policy nexus: foreign policy through trade or strictly business?

This article focuses on the horizontal coherence between EU trade and foreign policy, from the perspective of EU trade instruments. Drawing from different strands of literature, it puts forward the argument that synergetic coherence between the trade and foreign policy spheres of the EU is not likely to be realised due to the constraining impact of institutional-ideational factors within the EU, more specifically the continuing institutional compartmentalisation and cross-pillar divides of the EU system of external policy, with DG Trade being a highly autonomous sub-system. The establishment of synergetic coherence in the trade-foreign policy nexus has been further impeded since the mid-1990s by the emergence of three interrelated factors: legal restraints imposed by the World Trade Organization, growing export-oriented interests of EU businesses and the ideological pro-liberalisation bias of the EU. This argument is empirically illustrated through an analysis of various EU trade initiatives, including the Global Europe agreements, the Economic Partnership Agreements, the Generalised System of Preferences, and the Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Areas with the countries of the European Neighbourhood Policy.