Transparent Strategy Research Articles

Improved policy making through enhanced dialogue and focused education

The purpose of the paper is to show ways of strengthening civil society’s capacities and contribute to improvement of transparency of implementation of sectoral economic strategies at the level of Lviv Region of Ukraine and its 20 districts by supporting local authorities in their interaction. Specifically, it addresses itself on the following scientific objectives, namely, to show increase of public awareness at district, regional and national levels on the process of district and regional budget approval and spending; to demonstrate ways of assuring better involvement of civil society actors (NSA) in policy dialogue with public authorities (LA) on implementation of sector strategies in the following areas: regional development, rural development; and, finally, to comment on methods of strengthening CSO capacities to promote reform and increase public accountability in monitoring the management of public finance. The article presents findings from the research that covered 500 representatives of district level NSA and LA of the region, 100 region-level NSA-LA activists, and was intended to develop the abovementioned model, to benefit over 5000 people (NGOs, LAs, government) as a result, with information coverage to reach at least 15000 people. Results of the research showed that the efforts of this initiative will likely lead to the achievement of the following results in 2–3 years, including the transparency of budgeting is improved and lead to allocating district strategy funds in a better way; the dialogue between NSA and LA at regional and district level in the target region on particular Issues of implementation of sectoral strategies is existing; and, finally, effective and transparent strategies/ instruments of monitoring the management of public funds are researched and developed, CSOs in Lviv region and ist districts are using those strategies/instruments. Apart from being purely educational, the abovementioned model has a dimension allowing to provide small grants and organize exchange programs in order to strengthen institutional potential of local governments and ensure revitalization of human capital, especially on conflict-affected territories. Activities in the framework of this dimension or cluster should be provided in several stages. All the activities should be focused on improving policy making process of local governments in target regions. A pilot research of community attitudes has been held in 2014–2015 where, by means of Participatory Action Research, the authors have identified issues to be addressed and gaps in existing interaction mechanisms between NSA and LA at district level, and recommendations identifying the problem to be addressed by the current proposal have been drafted in direct consultation with the target groups and final beneficiaries. The research has allowed to structure cause-effect interconnections and activity clusters in this educational development project.

One Night or Many? Effects of Amenity Charge Transparency on Consumer Reaction

This research examines how different levels of amenity charge transparency in hotel services affect consumers’ prepurchase and postpurchase evaluations in low- and high-priced hotels. Results show that consumer responses to different levels of transparency of amenity pricing information on hotel websites vary from prepurchase to postpurchase across high- and low-priced hotels. Results support using a high amenity charge transparency strategy, especially for low-priced hotels. Managers should think beyond consumers’ immediate purchase decisions and consider consumer postpurchase reviews and future repeat purchases.

Mixing Methods in Organizational Communication Research: Current State and Prospects for Advancing Knowledge

In this review, we examine current practices in mixing methods in communication research. We examined 209 mixed-method organizational communication articles published between 1994 and 2014. Our analysis revealed four trends: (1) the dominance of single-paradigm, interpretive studies; (2) the preponderance of triangulation, complementarity, and development as purposes for mixing methods; (3) varied combinations of methods; and (4) a lack of mixed methods citations. In response to findings, we clarify the value proposition of mixing methods, suggest criteria for when communication researchers should or should not consider mixing methods, and recommend strategies for greater transparency in the reporting of mixed-method research.

Change in Global Environmental Governance

Where does change come from in the architecture of global environmental governance? To the extent that a traditional answer to this question exists, it is that states self-consciously make changes in the architecture, to meet specific cooperative goals and in response to new information about the state of the natural environment. This is the classical neoliberal, institutionalist, regime theory answer: States, understood as rational unitary actors, create new institutions to reduce the market imperfections in international cooperation. This answer has informed much good work on global environmental politics over the past two decades, but it is limited by its terms of reference. States are often neither rational nor unitary, and they are not the only actors of relevance to global environmental governance. A more recent counter-narrative to state-based regime theory abjures the state and the formal intergovernmental organizations created by states, looking both to other levels of government and to nongovernmental actors as sources of environmental governance. This approach looks at networks of nonstate actors as the source of voluntary global environmental leadership, built up from the grass roots rather than imposed from the top. This is a useful corrective to an exclusive focus on the state as the unit of analysis, and on conscious design rather

Effects of Structural Transparency in System Dynamics Simulators on Performance and Understanding

Prior exploration is an instructional strategy that has improved performance and understanding in system-dynamics-based simulators, but only to a limited degree. This study investigates whether model transparency, that is, showing users the internal structure of models, can extend the prior exploration strategy and improve learning even more. In an experimental study, participants in a web-based simulation learned about and managed a small developing nation. All participants were provided the prior exploration strategy but only half received prior exploration embedded in a structure-behavior diagram intended to make the underlying model’s structure more transparent. Participants provided with the more transparent strategy demonstrated better understanding of the underlying model. Their performance, however, was the equivalent to those in the less transparent condition. Combined with previous studies, our results suggest that while prior exploration is a beneficial strategy for both performance and understanding, making the model structure transparent with structure-behavior diagrams is more limited in its effect.

Corporate Governance Effect on Ownership and Control in Firms: An Empirical Evidence from Pakistan

The paper focuses on Corporate Governance (CG) impact on the ownership and control of firms in Pakistan. It also explores legal protection of managers and investors rights in companies. Corporate Governance is considered as a core element when we talk about economic performance and to enhance investor’s trust. Further on, it defines the structure, methods, control and processes of a company to achieve corporate objectives and targets under transparent strategies. CG enhances maximize shareholder value through transparency and accountability which increased firm’s performance. In this study, a model presented that shows the effect of effective corporate governance mechanism in reducing the ownership and control problem among the organizational members of the company. The technique which used to collect data from the stakeholders of various companies was questionnaire method. The result of the study shows that effective corporate governance mechanism is the best practice to reduce the ownership and control problems in the organizations. The clear company policies and objectives are also the major contributor in reducing the principle agent problem in the firms.

Architecting Transparency Back to the Roots - and Forward to the Future?

Where to go next in research and practice on information disclosure and institutional transparency? Where to learn and draw inspiration from? How about if we go back to the roots and embrace an original, material notion of transparency as the quality of a substance or element to be see-through? How about, if we then explore how the deliberate use and assemblage of such physical transparency strategies in architecture and design connects to - or could productively connect to - the institutional, political notions of transparency that we are concerned with in our area of institutional or political transparency? Or put more simply and zooming in on one core aspect of the conversation: what have the arrival of glass and its siblings done for democracy and what can we still hope they will do for open, transparent governance now and in the future? This paper embarks upon this exploratory journey in four steps. It starts out (section 2.1) by revisiting the historic relationship between architecture, design and the build environment on the one side and institutional ambitions for democracy, openness, transparency and collective governance on the other side. Quite surprisingly it finds a very close and ancient relationship between the two. Physical and political transparency have through the centuries been joined at the hip and this relationship - overlooked as it is typically is - has persisted in very important ways in our contemporary institutions of governance. As a second step I seek to trace the major currents in the architectural debate and practice on transparency over the last century and ask three principal questions: - How have architects as the master-designers of the built environment in theory, criticism and practice historically grappled with the concept of transparency? To what extent have they linked material notions and building strategies of transparency to political and social notions of transparency as tools for emancipation and empowerment? (section 2.2.)- What is the status of transparency in architecture today and what is the degree of cross-fertilisation between physical and institutional/political transparency? (section 3)- Where could a closer connect between material and political transparency lead us in terms of inspiring fresh experimentation and action in order to broaden the scope of available transparency tools and spawn fresh ideas and innovation? (section 4).Along the way I will scan the fragmented empirical evidence base for the actual impact of physical transparency strategies and also flag interesting areas for future research. As it turns out, an obsession with material transparency in architecture and the built environment has evolved in parallel and in many ways predates the rising popularity of transparency in political science and governance studies. There are surprising parallels in the hype-and-skepticism curve, common challenges, interesting learning experiences and a rich repertoire of ideas for cross-fertilisation and joint ideation that is waiting to be tapped. However, this will require to find ways to bridge the current disconnect between the physical and institutional transparency professions and move beyond the current pessimism about an actual potential of physical transparency beyond empty gestures or deployment for surveillance, notions that seems to linger on both sides. But the analysis shows that this bridge-building could be an extremely worthwhile endeavor. Both the available empirical data, as well as the ideas that even just this first brief excursion into physical transparency has yielded bode well for embarking on this cross-disciplinary conversation about transparency. And as the essay also shows, help from three very unexpected corners might be on the way to re-ignite the spark for taking the physical dimension of transparency seriously again. Back to the roots has a bright future.

Prospects of Foreign Capital Raising for Russian Power Grid Companies

The power sector reform in Russia saw capital raising as one of the key objectives. Additional investments are necessary, in particular, for renovation of fixed assets which are ca. 70% worn out. The official Strategy for the development of the Russian power grid also provides for privatization of certain companies and foreign investors are considered among others as the target audience. Upon prospective privatization the sector is expected not only to experience a certain increase in capital expenditures, but also to benefit from foreign expertise and efficiency enhancement. At the moment, however, the privatization plans are hard to implement due to a number of obstacles. Prospective investors are mostly concerned about the lack of transparent regulation and clear development strategy of the industry. This is particularly relevant to the tariff system, which has been continuously altered in recent years. This might be explained by the need of the state support by other sectors, which is often provided at the expense of the power industry. Furthermore, the prospects of foreign capital raising are negatively influenced by the conflict in Ukraine and the corresponding negative perception of potential investors. The above factors result in the decrease in value of power grid companies as well as in the lack of visibility regarding the prospects of the sector development. Privatization thus becomes unreasonable both for the state and prospective investors. At the same time, despite the sector specifics, there are precedents of successful sale of power grid assets to private investors by international peers. Particularly, Vatenfall and Forum have recently closed relevant transactions, nothing to say about the power grid sector of Brazil, majorly controlled by private owners. Transparent regulation, clear pricing rules and well-balanced economic policy are, indeed, indispensable prerequisites for successful privatization. Those might back up a prospective increase in value of power grid companies, which will make the sale of those economically reasonable as well as enhance the business attractiveness for target investors.

Ethnic Quotas and the Distribution of Public Benefits in India: A Replication and Reanalysis of Dunning and Nilekani (2013)

In contrast to previous research, Dunning and Nilekani (2013 APSR) find that household level data do not support the view that the distribution of targeted public benefits to scheduled castes and scheduled tribes has increased as a result of quotas in Indian village councils. Using a natural experiment created by rotating reserved council presidencies for these historically disadvantaged groups, the authors contend that the marginal effects of quotas are not significantly different from zero. Although a strong design, a transparent estimation strategy, and fully replicable results make the study compelling, we combine an intuitive presentation of power calculations and equivalence tests (Hartman and Hidalgo 2011), to show that the study is able to reject a null hypothesis of no effect only under an alternative hypothesis of a large difference in means. The study also lacks the power to reject a null of effect sizes previously documented in the literature on reservations in Indian village councils. Through the utilization of minimum detectable effects and equivalence testing, we provide a principled approach for evaluating null results in other settings.

Macau's Tourism Planning Approach and Its Shortcomings: A Case Study

This article examines the responsiveness of Macau's tourism planning approach in coping with the rapid urban changes and economic boom that have mainly resulted from the liberalization of the casino licensing system in 2002 and the implementation of the Individual Visitation Scheme in 2003. The results indicate that Macau's traditional top-down and progrowth driven tourism planning approach is not responsive enough to cope with these fast-changing circumstances. The shortcomings of this approach are identified, such as the lack of a clear vision of the city's position, the overconcentration of planning power in the hands of a few senior government officials, an absence of planning laws and detailed guidelines guiding developments, poor coordination among government departments, and a lack of planning expertise and knowledge. The article provides solutions for a more sustainable tourism planning approach, including diversifying Macau's economy away from its casino industry to avoid one particular economic sector holding too much bargaining power; formulating a comprehensive set of consistent and transparent planning missions, strategies, and detailed planning guidelines; creating a task force to foster coordination among government departments; and empower local citizens to participate in the tourism planning process.

Information Transparency for Health Care Consumers: Clear, but Effective?

Information Transparency for Health Care Consumers: Clear, but Effective?

Dynamic aspects of the underground economy in Greece

The size and trends of the Greek underground economy are examined over the period of 1958 to 2011. Estimates vary according to the method used and the time period under investigation. Overall, more than one quarter to one third of Greek economic activities have been either unrecorded or hidden from official statistics. Tax evasion, labour market rigidities, lack of competition and over-regulation are among the contributing factors. The underground economy is often viewed as a serious obstacle to economic growth. However, the empirical results are ambiguous. Dynamic models are explored to examine the relationship between the underground economy and economic growth. In the short run, one percentage point increase in the rate of economic growth would reduce the underground economy by 0.13, and in the long run by 1.26. The Greek Government is currently introducing structural reforms pursuing fiscal consolidation, transparency and e-governance strategies to combat tax evasion, and monitoring strategies in the statistical system to produce valid and reliable data sets.

Marine conservation science and governance in North–West Europe: Conservation planning and international law and policy

Member States of the European Union are increasingly designating marine protected areas (MPAs) to meet globally agreed marine protection targets and regional commitments. A number of studies have examined the impact of the associated European policy on the representation of species and habitats but there is no comprehensive review of their combined impact on marine conservation in Europe. Here a systematic conservation planning framework is used to conduct such a review and compare the existing legislation to three elements of best practice, which are designed to identify MPA networks that achieve conservation goals whilst increasing the likelihood of implementation. In particular, this review investigates the extent to which legislation: (i) translates broad policy goals into explicit targets; (ii) incorporates socio-economic data into the planning process; and (iii) requires a social assessment. Whilst this legislation has widespread political support and has underpinned the rapid expansion of MPA networks, this review shows it largely fails to incorporate these key components from systematic conservation planning. Therefore, if European approaches to marine conservation are to fulfil their goal of halting marine biodiversity loss, it is essential they link existing policy frameworks with transparent strategies that account for local conditions and support implementation.

Central Bank Transparency and Information Dissemination: An Experimental Approach

In this paper, we propose to compare different partial transparency regimes in order to determine the optimal diessemination policy by the central bank, using an experimental approach. A treatment dedicated to the benchmark situation (where information is fully released) is also available. Our experiment is based on subsequent framework of Morris and Shin (2002), Cornand and Heinemann (2008) and Trabelsi (2012). The predictive power of K-level reasoning is an issue that is addressed also in this paper. Our experiment indicates that - when fully disclosed - players overreact to public information and this overreaction is efficiently reduced when the degree of publicity decreases (i.e. when the fragmentation measure increases). The average weight assigned to common signal decreases over treatments, especially when we establish partial transparent strategy (i.e. fragmented information). The results provide support both for and against global games theoretical predictions. In fact, although players overreact to public signal, their behavior is inconsistent with theoretical equilibrium, which means that the destabilizing effect of public information is less pronounced experimentally than when it does in theory. This is not the case when public information is fragmented; subjects’ behavior does approach equilibrium. These observations coincide with both a collective and an individual analyses of behavior.

Loop Transparency for Scalable Dynamic Symbolic Execution

Dynamic symbolic execution is a promising approach for software analyzing and testing. However, it fails to scale to large programs due to the exponential number of paths to be explored. This paper focus on tackling loop caused path explosion problems and proposes a new approach to reduce paths that produce the same effects. We present a loop transparency strategy that makes use of the decision graph of under test program to discard constraints that produce paths with only a different number of iterations. A dynamic software testing tool LTDse based on loop transparency is designed and evaluated on three benchmarks. The experimental results show that our approach is effective since it can achieve better code coverage or require fewer program executions than traditional strategies.

The Premises and Promises of Trolls in Norwegian Biodiversity Preservation

This paper examines the perception and implementation of scientific knowledge among Norwegian environmental bureaucrats in the process of preserving biodiversity. Based on interviews with environmental officials and scientists, and document studies, the data reveal a mismatch between the ideal administrative world presented by environmental managers, and the empirical reality of biodiversity vulnerability and preservation. The environmental officials depict a process where their mandate is merely instrumental, where science provides objective descriptions of biodiversity value, and where the spheres of science, policy and administration are strictly separated. Instead of a transparent strategy for handling scientific ambiguities inherent in biodiversity value assessments (such as complexity and uncertainty), and administrative judgments, the paper argues that these boundary objects and areas are perceived as 'trolls' that are ignored and hidden by environmental officials. This strategy appears intuitive and guided by a linear decision making paradigm where boundary objects are considered illegitimate. As a solution to possible obstacles stemming from this institutional vacuum, the article finally discusses the potential of adapting or assimilating the trolls to better meet the challenges of biodiversity preservation. A viable first step might be cross-disciplinary characterisation of complexities and uncertainties of biodiversity assessments. This might help to articulate the binary ontology of value assessments and to better address the critical administrative, political and scientific intersections. These boundary areas must be re-institutionalised by environmental agencies, and cognizant strategies must be devised and implemented for making professional judgment and discretion. Finally, it may amount to a more honest stance on conservation, where the inherent complexities to biodiversity preservation may be managed as complexities, and not as trolls.

Between Consensus and Anxiety: Curating Transparency at the ICA of the 1950s

This article explores the founding principles of London's Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) through two of its experimental exhibitions, Growth and Form (1951) and an Exhibit (1957). By examining the writings of key individuals in the ICA's early years, such as Lawrence Alloway, Richard Hamilton and Herbert Read, this text considers how methods of curatorial inquiry were defined and developed. The purview of the curatorial, in this case as a practice that makes visible multiple associations through a strategy of transparency, is used to develop an understanding of the ICA as an institution centred on interdisciplinary investigation.

Private Sector-led Urban Development Projects. Management, Partnerships and Effects in the Netherlands and the UK

Private Sector-led Urban Development Projects. Management, Partnerships and Effects in the Netherlands and the UK

Private Sector-led Urban Development Projects. Management, Partnerships and Effects in the Netherlands and the UK

Private Sector-led Urban Development Projects. Management, Partnerships and Effects in the Netherlands and the UK

Private Sector-led Urban Development Projects. Management, Partnerships and Effects in the Netherlands and the UK

Private Sector-led Urban Development Projects. Management, Partnerships and Effects in the Netherlands and the UK