Agency Practices Research Articles

Valuing Public Transport Customer Amenities: International Transit Agency Practice

Public transport customer amenities cover a range of measures that can enhance the quality of the passenger experience, such as information provision and station quality. While much research has determined the value that users place on amenities, there is little understanding of current practice in the use of customer amenity valuations in project appraisal. A survey of transit agencies in 11 cities (Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Perth, Auckland, London, Paris, Toronto, Vienna, Oslo, and Singapore) was undertaken and showed that Australasian cities generally have widespread inclusion of customer amenities as part of advanced appraisals for all relevant types of public transport projects. Australasian practice tends to include customer amenities more frequently in project appraisal than London, Singapore, and Oslo. Paris, Toronto, and Vienna rarely (if at all) include customer amenities in these appraisals, although they adopt advanced appraisals for some projects. While agencies generally use published sources of customer amenity values specific to their country, Toronto and Singapore tend to use customer amenity values from London, highlighting a lack of local customer amenity values.

Supportive Agency and the Statization of Local Governance: The Practice of Power of the Village Governance Body in the Context of Transformation

Abstract The practice of power of the village governance body is an important perspective from which to understand the form of local governance as well as a crucial aspect of the capacity of local governance. In local government building, the village governance body has the special feature of supportive agency – that is, the secretary of the village Party committee has only incomplete governance power, but he/she does have the power to allocate resources in the village. Different from the personalization of power in an oligarchy, the power of a supportive agent is something that local rural elites rely on to gain resources. They then use those resources as a hook to draw in other participants and use public rules to embed themselves into the governance of village affairs, thereby forming the power structure of the grassroots community. The network of power and interests in the interaction between township and village and the pattern of profit-sharing in the village constitute the basis for this practice of power under supportive agency. The supportive relationship between local government and village cadres has led to a separation between the cadres and the peasants, a rupture of the state-peasant relationship, increasing social differentiation, and weakened village autonomy. The practice of supportive agency reflects changes in the logic of local governance – local autonomy has been turned into local governance statization. Thus, in these circumstances, in order to achieve a successful transition to modernized local governance, the linkage between the state and the peasants should be rebuilt, and the local organization of governance should be reshaped.

Glosa do postanowienia Sądu Najwyższego z dnia 15 stycznia 2020 r., sygn. I KZP 10/19

The commented judgment concerns the issue of criminal liability for false testimony under Art. 233 § 1a of the Penal Code, in the context of its impact on the understanding of the rights of the defence. The author of the gloss is critical of the position that the amendment of 11 March 2016, Art. 233 § 1a of the Criminal Code, does not raise any doubts as introducing “only the privileged type of the crime of perjury”. Existing doubts about the nature and scope of the new regulation may not only affect the content of the rights of the defence but, more importantly, result in a harmful practice of law enforcement agencies convinced of the “instructional” nature of the Civil Procedure Code Art. 313.

Improving Data Quality of Automated Pavement Condition Data Collection: Summary of State of the Practices of Transportation Agencies and Views of Professionals

Automated or semi-automated pavement condition data collection is replacing manual data collection in many state and local highway agencies due to its advantages of reducing labor, time, and cost. However, the practical experience of highway agencies indicates that there are still data quality issues with the pavement condition data collected using existing image and sensor-based data collection technologies. This study aims to investigate the implementation experiences and issues of automated or semi-automated pavement condition surveys. An online questionnaire survey was conducted, along with scheduled virtual/phone interviews to gather information from government, industry, and academia about the state of the practice and state of the art. Open questions about the data quality and quality control & quality assurance (QC/QA) were used to receive first-hand inputs from highway agencies and pavement experts. The study has compiled the following observations: (1) Highway agencies urgently need a uniform data collection protocol for automated data collection; (2) the current QA requires too much human intervention; (3) cost ($100–$200 per mile) is a significant burden for state and local agencies; (4) the main issues regarding data quality are data inconsistencies and discrepancies; (5) agencies expect a greater accuracy once the image processing algorithms are improved using artificial intelligence technologies; and (6) existing automated data collection methods are not available for project-level data collection.

Choice of words, expressions of mind: Understanding the marginality of translation in Singapore’s public services

ABSTRACT The value of translation is underestimated in Singapore, resulting in the marginalization of translators and interpreters. This study adopts a stylistic approach to investigating the marginality of translation in the public services with a view to identifying issues that could have hindered the professionalization of translation and interpreting in Singapore. The data of this study is public discourse drawn from government websites pertaining to translation. The article first examines the employment practices of government agencies. The subsequent stylistic analysis, aided by corpus linguistic software, focuses on deviant linguistic features in vocabulary, syntax, figures of speech, context and cohesion. Theories of point of view, framing and cooperative principles in conversations are integrated into the critical interpretation of policymakers’ word choices to understand their attitudes. The study reveals that linguistic repertoires in the public domain embrace abstractionism to reduce the salience of translation, perceived as the fringes of bilingualism.

Compliance with Professional Standards When Disclosing Information From Pre-Election Surveys during the Period 2014 – 2021

The article presents the results of an author's study aimed at tracking the practice of research agencies in Bulgaria regarding the observance of professional standards in publishing empirical data from “sociological” pre-election surveys during the election campaigns for the National Assembly, President, and European Parliament in the period 2014 – 2021. To achieve the goal of the study, a monitoring tool was prepared and used, answering the question: to what extent is it legal and in accordance with professional standards to present and publish data from sociological (pre-election) surveys during the election campaigns in the period under review. The leading indicators for monitoring are derived from the Electoral Code, the codes of ethics, and statements of ESOMAR, BSA, BAMOR, and ABRO.

Bank Supervision and Administrative Law

This Article presents a systematic consideration of how administrative law doctrines apply to banking supervision, an unusual form of administrative practice that rests on an iterative relationship between banks and supervisors. First, it describes the rationales for, and process of, bank supervision. Second, this Article uses recent administrative law arguments lodged by banking interests against key supervisory practices as the springboard for an analysis of why our largely “trans-substantive” administrative law can be problematic in the context of specific mandates given by Congress to administrative agencies. It argues that courts considering how administrative law doctrine applies to agency practices must contemplate more fully the substantive law the underpins the mission and organization of the agency. When these statutory provisions are taken appropriately into account, arguments that supervisory practices are consistent with administrative law requirements are substantially strengthened. Third, this Article demonstrates how even a more tailored application of contemporary administrative law doctrines would miss a critical feature of banking supervision—that it is premised on an ongoing relationship between banks and supervisors. Judicial review of agency action usually focuses on discrete agency actions, thereby eliding this critical fact. As a result, administrative law doctrines such as the “practically binding” test for agency guidance are peculiarly inapposite. Lastly, this Article offers a tentative proposal for shifting the administrative law review of supervisory actions to focus on how banking agency processes manage the iterative nature of the supervisory relationship.

Relações Públicas e Astroturfing na perspectiva relacional / Public Relations and Astroturfing from a relational perspective

O presente artigo trata sobre o astroturfing, relata casos ocorridos em diversas partes do mundo e tensiona-o com a área das Relações Públicas. Esta é uma pesquisa exploratória de caráter qualitativo, com base teórica na perspectiva relacional da comunicação (SILVA, 2013). A partir de uma pesquisa de estado da arte e bibliográfica embasamos a discussão em Silva (2013), Attkisson (2015), Henriques e Silva (2014; 2021), Simões (1994), Kunsch (2003) e no Conselho Federal, CONFERP. Em linhas gerais, percebem-se aproximações entre as duas áreas, por outro lado, as RRPP estão sustentadas em um código de ética que deve balizar a atuação dos profissionais, consequentemente, conferindo responsabilidade e qualidade às relações estabelecidas no mercado.Palavras-chave: Astroturfing, relações públicas, perspectiva relacional. AbstractThe public relations activity is defined as an area of strategic communication which acts on building mutually beneficial relationships between organizations and their audiences. Constant social transformations have an impact on the social perception of different themes, which in turn also directly affects the positioning of organizations. In this scenario, we discuss the term “astroturfing” and its similarities and/or differences concerning public relations based on a relational perspective of communication. This article is characterized as an exploratory research based on a bibliographic analysis. The object of study is astroturfing in the context of public relations; therefore, a qualitative approach has been used. We observed that the extreme usage of digital social networks has contributed to numerous scenarios of misinformation which, therefore, end up encouraging deceptive or simulated practices arising from different social institutions. Thus, it is in such a context that the practice of astroturfing can be seen. This practice emerged in the 1980s in the United States during an election campaign in which there were disputes for a favourable public opinion. The term is an analogy to the word “grassroots, that is, how spontaneous popular manifestations are known in the US, and AstroTurf is a brand of artificial grass created by Monsanto in the 1960s, which is famous for its similarity to the appearance of real grass” (Silva, 2013: 14). The phenomenon can be seen as the creation of public manifestations by an audience that does not exist in order to achieve a favourable scenario for organizational objectives. In a practical way, communication processes can act as astroturfing drivers, thus contributing to the emergence of artificial contexts. In this article, we investigate the communication process by reflecting on the importance of the PR professional who looks at the public from a relational perspective. The connection of such a phenomenon with the field of public relations derives from the practices of international agencies that have subtly used astroturfing to achieve the goals of their clients in such a way that organizational ethics committees do not clearly perceive it. This is one of the aspects that leads professionals in the area to question what would or would not be ethical. Public relations, as an expression of strategic communication, has the ability to observe scenarios, mobilize forces and elaborate narratives that enable the construction of an organizational image and reputation. Perhaps an adequate translation of these strategic efforts is to recognize the connections among public relations, its audiences and the public opinion. In this scenario, there are ample information flows from the mediatized context that sometimes can create gaps for the practice of astroturfing. We understand that the phenomenon is consolidated as a contemporary challenge in the market, mainly in communication. Therefore, we highlight on how the ethical dimensions of public relations permeate the purpose of balance and harmony of interests. It is urgent to act, not only for the aesthetics but also for the ethics of the profession, in favour of the strengthening of the subjects and, consequently, the quality of the established social relations.Keywords: Astroturfing, public relations, Relational perspective.

Social management technologies in the development of digital interaction between penal enforcement agencies and the police for the prevention of offenses by persons sentenced to criminal penalties without isolation from society

In the article, as part of the improvement of social technologies in law enforcement, the mechanism of digital interaction between the penal enforcement system (hereinafter, the UIS) and the internal affairs bodies (hereinafter, the ATS) in the conditions of a modern network society and the expected transition of the domestic economy to its digital model is described. The purpose of the article is to study the organizational, managerial and technological capabilities between the services and divisions of the UIS and the Department of Internal Affairs for the detection, prevention and suppression of offenses by those sentenced to criminal penalties without isolation from society, the establishment of official and functional powers of employees of the criminal executive inspections of the UIS and the police of the Department of Internal Affairs. The objectives of the work are to determine the role of interaction between the services and divisions of the UIS and the ATS, to eliminate functional contradictions in order to improve supervision and control over registered persons and the organization of digital management to ensure security and law and order in the municipal and regional territory they serve. The article is prepared on the basis of an analysis of the norms of law, departmental normative legal acts, law enforcement and law enforcement practice of law enforcement agencies based on the provisions of the theory of social management, cybernetics, information analysis, digital information, the latest achievements in the field of interdisciplinary scientific research. The study uses general scientific and special legal means and methods of cognition that ensure the complexity of the organizational and legal study of the system of joint law enforcement activities. The novelty of the work is predetermined by the hypothesis about the network structure of society adopted as a basis. The relevance of the work is due to the course proposed by the President of Russia to build a digital economic system – as an urgent need to maintain the competitiveness of the domestic economy among the major economies of the global world order. In this regard, the developed mechanism of digital interaction of the studied bodies is an integral part of the digital economy, which in turn determines the mechanism for improving social technologies of public administration in the law enforcement sphere.

How can organizational communication impact society? Reflections from the communication practice in Portuguese communication agencies

This investigation aims to reflect on the impact generated by organizational communication in society, considering its capacity to interfere in the public sphere construction. For this, theoretical research was made addressing the communicative constitution of organizations and their relationship with society. Furthermore, in-depth interviews were conducted with Portuguese communication agencies for verifying perceptions about the communication impact in society. In the results, it was identified that to evidence this impact, it is necessary to discuss the communication organizational power in the interactional context and the discourse influence in individuals' perceptions and behaviors formation. This work was supported by Capes [grant numbers: 88881.362250/2019-01 from Program PDSE] and developed at University of Minho (Braga, Portugal).

Relações Públicas e Astroturfing na perspectiva relacional

The public relations activity is defined as an area of strategic communication which acts on building mutually beneficial relationships between organizations and their audiences. Constant social transformations have an impact on the social perception of different themes, which in turn also directly affects the positioning of organizations. In this scenario, we discuss the term “astroturfing” and its similarities and/or differences concerning public relations based on a relational perspective of communication. This article is characterized as an exploratory research based on a bibliographic analysis. The object of study is astroturfing in the context of public relations; therefore, a qualitative approach has been used. We observed that the extreme usage of digital social networks has contributed to numerous scenarios of misinformation which, therefore, end up encouraging deceptive or simulated practices arising from different social institutions. Thus, it is in such a context that the practice of astroturfing can be seen. This practice emerged in the 1980s in the United States during an election campaign in which there were disputes for a favourable public opinion. The term is an analogy to the word “grassroots, that is, how spontaneous popular manifestations are known in the US, and AstroTurf is a brand of artificial grass created by Monsanto in the 1960s, which is famous for its similarity to the appearance of real grass” (Silva, 2013: 14). The phenomenon can be seen as the creation of public manifestations by an audience that does not exist in order to achieve a favourable scenario for organizational objectives. In a practical way, communication processes can act as astroturfing drivers, thus contributing to the emergence of artificial contexts. In this article, we investigate the communication process by reflecting on the importance of the PR professional who looks at the public from a relational perspective. The connection of such a phenomenon with the field of public relations derives from the practices of international agencies that have subtly used astroturfing to achieve the goals of their clients in such a way that organizational ethics committees do not clearly perceive it. This is one of the aspects that leads professionals in the area to question what would or would not be ethical. Public relations, as an expression of strategic communication, has the ability to observe scenarios, mobilize forces and elaborate narratives that enable the construction of an organizational image and reputation. Perhaps an adequate translation of these strategic efforts is to recognize the connections among public relations, its audiences and the public opinion. In this scenario, there are ample information flows from the mediatized context that sometimes can create gaps for the practice of astroturfing. We understand that the phenomenon is consolidated as a contemporary challenge in the market, mainly in communication. Therefore, we highlight on how the ethical dimensions of public relations permeate the purpose of balance and harmony of interests. It is urgent to act, not only for the aesthetics but also for the ethics of the profession, in favour of the strengthening of the subjects and, consequently, the quality of the established social relations.

Training Incoming Social Work Students in Motivational Interviewing Skills

Field practicum settings often do not have adequate resources, staff, and time to meet the extensive basic training and learning needs of master’s level social work students beginning their first year of field placement. An innovative, empirically-supported motivational interviewing (MI) skills lab was created to provide students with supplemental skills training in preparation for field placement entry. The lab practice of MI strategies allows students to gain familiarity with effective methods for forming helping relationships, developing intervention goals, and understanding and resolving ambivalence about behavioral change. This paper describes the rationale for the experiential learning approach, addresses challenges encountered by students in learning MI skills, and demonstrates its potential effectiveness in addressing the learning needs of incoming social work students. We recommend that the MI lab be considered as a model for helping to prepare new students for agency practice.

On the Issue of the Legal Assessment of the Socially Dangerous Consequences of Environmental Crimes

Qualification of environmental crimes evokes a lot of difficulties. For example, in practice, there are no uniform criteria for the legal assessment of their socially dangerous consequences. The criminal law has many evaluative categories that the legislator uses in the law as similar or identical terms to characterize different legal structures. But the success of counteracting acts that violate the lawful order of protecting the environment and using natural resources depends on an accurate understanding of these structures. Therefore, a complex, comprehensive study of the legal properties of socially dangerous consequences of environmental crimes is necessary. The purpose of this research is to study the legal nature of the socially dangerous consequences of environmental crimes, to systematize and develop legal positions for their assessment in law enforcement practice. The research methodology is based on a theoretical analysis of the main scientific provisions on the elements of a crime, for example, socially dangerous consequences. The informational and empirical basis of the study is the legal positions formulated by the Plenum of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation on the qualification of environmental crimes, as well as materials of the judicial and investigative practice of law enforcement agencies. The object of observation is socially dangerous consequences as a logical and legal category from the standpoint of theoretical and legal regulation and law enforcement activities. Scientific novelty lies in the formation of the author's understanding and classification of the socially dangerous consequences of environmental crimes, proposals for the legal assessment of specific consequences in the aspect of de lege lata, as well as the improvement of criminal legislation in the aspect of de lege ferenda. This scientific study showed the need for an integrated approach in the legal regulation and interpretation of the socially dangerous consequences of environmental crimes.

The protective role of children's agency: towards critical understanding of agency amongst children living in the context of armed conflict and political violence

BackgroundIn the mainstream literature, children exposed to political violence and armed conflicts are conventionally viewed as a vulnerable group, but we believe their coping abilities, survival skills, and agency are overlooked and underestimated. In this study, we challenged this traditional view by conceptualising agency as children's capacity to act and contribute to their own security, wellbeing, and development, and assessed its contribution in helping them adapt to and cope with challenging and traumatic living conditions. MethodsWe used a socioecological approach to observe and assess qualitatively children's agency. Participants were recruited by local associations in rural areas, urban areas, and refugee camps in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. They were chosen by directors and counsellors of education centres through purposive convenience sampling. The inclusion criterion was no diagnosis of physical or psychological disease. All participants and families provided verbal consent before the activities. Each child was asked to draw and describe a map representing all significant places—safe and unsafe—within their neighbourhoods. A subgroup of children was asked to guide the research team within their neighbourhoods using a walkalong technique. All children's narratives were audiotaped, transcribed, and translated by two local bilingual researchers (EG and AJ). Thematic content analysis was applied to written and drawn materials using Atlas.Ti version 8. FindingsData were collected between April and November, 2018. 75 children aged 7–13 years (mean 10·27 [SD 1·38] years, 68% girls, 32% boys, 23% residing in the Gaza Strip and 58% in the West Bank) drew maps. 30 children (17 girls and 13 boys) guided research team members around neighbourhoods. Thematic content analysis revealed six main domains representing children's everyday strategies and practices of agency: 1) actively employing social resource; 2) challenging movement restrictions; 3) receiving an education; 4) personal strategies; 5) reclaiming play spaces; and 6) meaning-making processes and political engagement (appendix). Agency emerged as strictly intersected by experience, societal expectations, gender, geography, and social maturity. InterpretationThe domains revealed in this study illustrate the crucial interconnection between children's practices of agency and the multiple ecologies of their everyday life implied in promoting (or suppressing) their ability to mobilise resources to improve their own wellbeing. Children's agency has emerged as a multidimensional construct within the different socioecological levels and thus showing the importance of considering individual family, community, and societal levels when examining life in the context of war. Our findings challenge the picture of Palestinian children as helpless victims, and instead show them to be active agents who mobilise resources within themselves and their social, physical, and political experiences, despite living with violence. The children we assessed were highly competent and active agents who drew on personal, social, and external resources to enhance their wellbeing and life satisfaction and to cope with adversity. Our findings illustrate the importance of agency for children's wellbeing within challenging and traumatic living conditions and how structures, contexts, and relationships can expand or constrain the child's choices and hence, their agency. FundingNone.

The transparency of EU agency science: Towards a new proactive approach

Recent health and environmental crises have emphasized the importance of transparency of agency science, i.e. the scientific information that underpins public regulation. Yet how EU law shapes the transparency of EU agency science and whether it contributes to publicly holding experts to account for the quality of their advice, remains an open question. This article analyses the transparency regimes of three EU agencies.We show that the EU legal approach to transparency of agency science is undergoing significant change, through legislative reform and agency practice. The traditional “passive” approach based on the Access Regulation is fragmented and reveals several shortcomings. Recent trends, such as the 2021 reform of the General Food Law, indicate that the EU is moving towards “proactive transparency”, which improves expert accountability. Our study contributes to debates on EU risk regulation and the general reform of the Access Regulation. The article offers an interdisciplinary perspective informed by political epistemology, namely the study of the role of experts in public decision-making.

“The most challenging aspect of this journey has been dealing with child protection”: Kinship carers’ experiences in Australia

When children cannot live at home with their parents, a placement with relatives or family friends has become a preferred first option in many Western countries in out-of-home care systems. Whilst practised by Indigenous communities for centuries, this is a relatively new model of out-of-home care in Western child welfare systems. Kinship care has emerged as a form of care that is arguably worth investing in. It offers kin children the opportunity to remain connected to family and community. Studies suggest that kinship care results in promising outcomes for children’s education, health, and wellbeing. There is a growing awareness of kinship carers’ experiences of services designed to support them and their kin.This study aimed to investigate the experiences of kinship carers in caring for their kin children and engaging with services designed to support the kinship placement. A mixed-methods approach was adopted, including participants who had the full-time care of one or more kin children, with or without statutory child protection involvement. The nine individuals identified for in-depth interviewing were purposively selected to ensure diversity in cultural identity and geographical location across Australia. Quantitative analysis enabled the reporting of descriptive statistics and overall patterns relating to the nature of rewards and challenges encountered by carers. The qualitative component of the study design allowed for an in-depth exploration of key issues highlighted in the survey.Consistent with earlier research, kinship carers reported experiencing financial stressors and significant challenges pertaining to their kin child’s difficulties. An unanticipated finding, however, was the level of stress experienced by kinship carers in relation to their interactions with child protection and other government support services. Simply put, services intended to support the placement were experienced as disrespectful, ignoring families’ requests for help or offering a surveillance role only. For Aboriginal kinship carers, this experience of disrespect was compounded by racism and racial micro aggressions throughout the placement assessment process.Based on these findings, further investigation into child protection and other government agency practices is urgently required to assess and support kinship care placements. In the context of Australia’s legacy of the stolen generation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children, further research needs to explore culturally sensitive and safe practices that would strengthen and support kinship families to raise their children within their cultural contexts.

ENVIRONMENTAL ACCOUNTING FOR THE MANAGEMENT OF CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY PT.GARAM KALIANGET

Environmental Accounting is the policy of incorporating environmental costs into the business practices of companies or government agencies. Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is a transparent and ethical behavior that supports the welfare of the community and the environment, which is integrated or applied through social activities within the organization. This research was conducted at PT. Garam (Persero) Kalianget by using Karanganyar village as one of the clarification villages as recipients and managers of CSR provided by PT. Garam (Persero) Kalianget. The results showed the application of environmental accounting at PT. Garam (Persero) Kalianget. good and optimal, this can be seen from the results of the analysis carried out by researchers using 4 aspects of environmental accounting that have been carried out well and also in the disclosure of realized costs is very transparent. For waste management, PT. Garam (Persero) Kalianget has met the feasibility standard.

Development and validation of the supervision practice in human services scale

AbstractThis paper reports on the development and validation of a scale to measure supervision practice in human service agencies. Supervision in human services is designed to provide management, mediation, professional development, and personal support to workers. The Supervision Practices in Human Services scale (SPHS) captures a range of supervisory practices from productive to abusive behaviours. The SPHS had strong psychometric properties. It includes 23 items with four subscales (Leadership, Inattention, Unprofessional Modelling, Unethical Practice). The SPHS can be used to identify training needs for supervisors or identify where interventions are needed to stop harmful behaviour.

»Wir nehmen die ganze Familie auf!«

The article describes the development of a systemic youth welfare service up to the introduction of a concept of outreach systemic family therapy (AFT) from the practice of a youth welfare agency. The steps for establishing the concept, the cooperation experiences with public youth welfare agencies, the feedback and results from the work with the families and the effects on the employees are shown.

The regulatory environment of real estate professional services firms (PSFs) in Kenya

PurposeThis paper brings up the regulatory environment for valuation and estate agency practices in Kenya. Its main purpose is to assess the regulatory institutions to determine whether consumers of real estate services are protected from risks in the property market and to compare Kenya's situation to other markets in the world.Design/methodology/approachThis is a qualitative study of institutions including bodies and laws that are involved in the regulation of valuation and estate agency practices in Kenya, using document analysis method. The roles of professional body, the Institution of Surveyors of Kenya and the registration bodies, the Valuers Registration Board and the Estate Agency Registration Boards and attendant statutes, the Valuers Act and the Estate Agents Act are reviewed to gain insights into the regulation practice in Kenya. Benchmarking is done using regulatory practices in the United Kingdom and the USA.FindingsConcerning valuation, Kenya uses a hybrid system combining the United Kingdom's self-regulation approach and the USA's state regulation approach. The co-regulation approach is working well for valuation practice in Kenya. On the other hand, the regulatory system for estate agents is weak because of limited powers of enforcement, thereby allowing an unknown number of agents to practise outside the regulatory framework.Originality/valueThe paper is unique in its subject matter as it evaluates the external organization (regulatory) environment of professional services firms (PSFs) in the real estate market. Existing studies have been done mainly by management scholars focussing on the internal organization environment of PSFs in general. Secondly, the study brings up to the international audience the regulatory system and practice in the real estate professional services market. This has not been done for Kenya and perhaps for many other countries. Lastly, it makes a novel recommendation that emphasis should be placed on registration and regulation of PSFs rather than individual practitioners to enhance quality in the provision of services where real estate agency is concerned.