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The phenomenon of rural marginalisation has intensified across the European Union after the 2008 global economic crisis, since the traditional state forms have been proved unable to promote an all-inclusive governing. Beyond-the-state governance systems are socially innovative, horizontal, networked, and collaborative institutional arrangements that are committed to breaking through this rural marginalisation. Marginalised rural areas provide a favourable context for socially innovative governance, since they contain small cohesive communities, while at the same time poor governing penetrates them. Nevertheless, social innovation in rural governance remains largely unexplored. The novel contribution of this article consists in underlying this research gap and exploring the question of how socially innovative governance is fostered or impeded within marginalised rural regions. Comparative research was conducted in between the marginalised rural regions of Muhlviertel in Austria, Baixo Alentejo in Portugal, and Phthiotis in Greece. The comparative results revealed some of the parameters that foster socially innovative governance; a decentralized government structure, advanced interregional networking, a discourse dissemination among the stakeholders and the civil society, as well as an organizational stability of the involved institutions for social innovation to become embedded. This article points to socially innovative governance that has a more codified and systematized hypostasis by recommendation of unique governance qualities.

This Lecture was given by Michael J Beloff QC in 2014 and first published in NILQ 65(4) (2014) 429–448.

International audience; Using an approach that embodies an explicit tradeoff between need and governance considerations, we propose an optimal aid allocation formula. We first assume exogenous, then endogenous governance. In the former case, a central concept is need-adjusted aid effectiveness while in the second case the donor has policing instruments under the form of monitoring and sanctioning capacities. We show that external disciplining has two advantages when the donor is sensitive enough to poverty intensity: (1) to cater to poor countries to a greater extent than is possible when local governance cannot be influenced by external forces, and (2) to respond (non-perversely) to improvements in the local governance of a country by raising its aid share. In institutionally weak countries, populations should welcome wisely applied donor's discipline as a way not only to get access to financial support but also to constrain their elites to refrain from abusing their position excessively. Imposing discipline when the release of externally-provided development funds is at stake seems more acceptable than aid directed to the explicit purpose of combatting corruption.

As organizations increasingly view information as one of their most valuable assets, which supports the creation and distribution of their products and services, information security will be an integral part of the design and operation of organizational business processes. Yet, risks associated with cyber attacks are on the rise. Organizations that are subjected to attacks can suffer significant reputational damage as well as loss of information and knowledge. As a consequence, effective leadership is cited as a critical factor for ensuring corporate level attention for information security. However, there is a lack of empirical understanding as to the roles strategic leaders play in shaping and supporting the cyber security strategy. This study seeks to address this gap in the literature by focusing on how senior leaders support the cyber security strategy. The authors conducted a series of exploratory interviews with leaders in the positions of Chief Information Officer, Chief Security Information Officer, and Chief Technology Officer. The findings revealed that leaders are engaged in both transitional, where the focus is on improving governance and integration, and transformational support, which involves fostering a new cultural mindset for cyber resiliency and the development of an ecosystem approach to security thinking. Managerial relevance statement Our findings provide interesting insights for managers particularly those in the role of Chief Information Officers (CIOs), Chief Security Information Officers (CSIOs), and Chief Technology Officers (CTOs). We propose a Cyber Security Strategy Framework (CSSF) which can be used by these information/technology managers to design an effective organizational strategy to develop cyber resilience in their organization. Our framework suggests that managers should focus on transitional and transformational support. The transitional support focuses on improving governance and integration whereas transformational support focuses on the emphasis of fostering a new cultural mindset for cyber resiliency and the development of an ecosystem approach to security thinking. Our findings provide good evidence showing how leaders can support more effective cyber security initiatives.

Contracts are crucial for curbing opportunism, a common phenomenon in construction projects. This article differentiates among the contractual mechanisms of obligatoriness, monitoring, and coordination, and studies the relationships between the complexity of the above functions and different types of opportunistic behavior. Using data from 262 clients (i.e., the parties issuing contracts) in the Chinese construction industry, this article reveals that contractual obligatoriness has a negative effect on strong-form opportunistic behavior. At the same time, contractual monitoring and coordination have positive and negative effects, respectively, on weak-form opportunistic behavior. Furthermore, we find that goodwill trust mediates contractual coordination's effect on weak-form opportunistic behavior. This article contributes to both the contract management literature and the interorganizational relationship governance literature by providing more nuanced findings that speak to the debate surrounding the relationship between contractual governance and opportunistic behavior, elaborate the mediation mechanism, and provide insights into the contractual function view.

How are extensive internet control, surveillance and restricted online anonymity reconceptualized into virtues of effective state governance, rather than violations of civic rights? The Russian government has instrumentalized ostensibly sound legitimations - countering terrorist and extremist propaganda, combatting child pornography - to bring about a dramatic decline in internet freedom. While these policies have been widely studied, scholarship examining how the Russian government legitimates and cultivates popular support for restricting online freedoms remains scarce. This article therefore studies how restrictions of internet freedom are framed in political and media discourses. It focuses on the case of Telegram, a popular messaging application that was banned in Russia in April 2018 for its refusal to provide the FSB with access to encrypted messages in compliance with anti-terrorism legislation. It finds that media framing of the ban was more diverse than the official governmental line. While national security framing was important, the 'rule of law' frame occurred most frequently, and conspiracy framing was markedly infrequent.

Amaphela, meaning cockroach in isiXhosa, are a form of paratransit that provide township dwellers in Cape Town, South Africa with flexible, inexpensive and relatively comfortable transportation in combination with other formalised and semi-formalised services. While this shared mobility practice has received scant attention through the lens of paratransit and transportation geographies, amaphela have completely evaded analysis through the lens of mobility studies. The flexibility and informality of amaphela services can be understood through both utopian or dystopian lenses: It can be seen as a threat to order, formality, safety and reliability in the modern South African city; or it can be celebrated for the unique and creative ways that they negotiate township space while serving the public through flexible and affordable demand-driven service. This paper concludes that amaphela services in Cape Town thrive in an intermediate zone of adaptive infrastructure and governance to fulfil their mobility role.

This article examines the effect of board governance on investment efficiency. I use the staggered enactment of board reforms in 41 countries as a shock to board structure that exogenously improves the quality of board oversight of managers. I find that investment-Q sensitivity improves by roughly half post-reform. This effect is more pronounced for firms that are more exposed to the reforms or when external governance mechanisms are less likely to discipline managers. These findings suggest that increased board oversight strengthens managers’ incentives to make investment decisions that are more in line with their firms’ growth opportunities.

Europeanization indicates not only the construction of the institutions of the European Union (EU), but also the changes in the politics and policies of the member states. Studies of Europeanization look at the impact of the European Union on the national systems of the member states, addressing processes of resistance, transformation, and adaptation to EU policies and norms in member states, shifting attention from the supranational level to multi-level governance. Linked to this is the notion that public policies are produced in a complex system where several norms and implementing agencies interact. Keywords: democracy; globalization; movements; Europe

A duty of loyalty prohibits fiduciaries from appropriating business opportunities from their companies. Starting in 2000, Delaware, followed by several other states, allowed boards to waive their duty. We show that public firms covered by waiver laws invest less in R&D, produce fewer and less valuable patents, and exhibit abnormally high inventor departures. Remaining innovation activities contribute less to firm value, a fact confirmed by the market reaction when firms reveal their curtailed internal growth opportunities by announcing acquisitions. Consistent with the laws’ intent to provide contracting flexibility to emerging firms, we find evidence of positive impacts for small firms. Authors have furnished an Internet Appendix, which is available on the Oxford University Press Web site next to the link to the final published paper online.

Blockholder monitoring is central to corporate governance, but blockholders large enough to exercise significant unilateral influence are rare. Mechanisms that enable moderately sized blockholders to exert collective influence are therefore important. Existing theory suggests that engagement by moderately sized blockholders is unlikely, especially when the blocks are held by delegated asset managers who have limited skin in the game. We present a model in which multiple delegated blockholders engage target management in parallel, that is, “wolf pack activism.” Delegation reduces skin in the game, which decreases incentives for engagement. However, it also induces competition over investor capital (i.e., competition for flow). We show that this increases engagement incentives and helps ameliorate the problem of insufficient engagement, although it can also foster excess engagement. Under competition for flow, the total amount of capital seeking skilled activist managers is relevant to engagement incentives, which helps to predict when and where wolf packs arise. Flow incentives are particularly valuable in incentivizing engagement by packs with smaller members. This paper was accepted by Gustavo Manso, finance.

Through a case study of water governance currently operational in the capital city of Shillong in Meghalaya, this chapter analyses issues related to water governance and the role of local institutions and challenges. Of the many significant findings, one discovers that closely knit communities, through the local institutions, can successfully distribute water and look after and protect water sources. The dorbar shnongs play a vital role in the augmenting water supply in some localities in the city. Water creates interdependencies among the actors, but this is weakened by modern mechanisms of government and urbanisation itself.

We show that banks with high environmental, social, and governance (ESG) ratings issue fewer mortgages in poor localities—in number and dollar amount—than banks with low ESG ratings. This lending disparity happens at both the county and census tract level, worsens in disaster areas of severe hurricane strikes, is robust to alternative ESG ratings (including using only the social (S) component), and cannot be explained by banks’ differential deposit networks. We find no difference in mortgage default rates between high- and low-ESG banks, rejecting an alternative explanation based on differential credit screening quality. We report a complementary, not substitution, relation between high-ESG banks’ mortgage lending and their community development investments (like affordable housing projects) in poor localities. Loan-application-level analyses confirm that high-ESG banks are more likely than low-ESG banks to reject mortgage loans in poor neighborhoods. The evidence hints at social wash: banks deploy prosocial rhetoric and symbolic actions while not lending much in disadvantaged communities, the social function they arguably ought to perform. Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) examinations partially undo the social wash effect.

We find a negative relation between democracy and initial public offering (IPO) underpricing for a sample of 23,050 IPOs across 45 countries. The effect of democracy on underpricing is weaker for IPOs audited by Big 4 auditing firms, backed by venture capital firms, and with better disclosure specificity of use of proceeds. Democracy exerts a larger influence on underpricing for firms with higher agency problems, in countries with weaker institutional quality or shareholder protection, and during periods of high investor sentiment or economic policy uncertainty. Overall, our results highlight the importance of democracy in reducing IPO underpricing around the world.

For any cities, the optimal objective of development is to fully tap the value of land resources, while pursuing the progress of economy, society, and eco-environment. Currently, there is not yet a unified evaluation standard for sustainable development quality of urban environment; the land resource value has not been deeply evaluated from the three aspects of society, economy, and eco-environment. Therefore, this paper tries to measure urban land resource value based on sustainable environmental space governance. Firstly, the authors constructed a scientific evaluation index system for sustainable development quality of urban environment. Next, a comprehensive evaluation method was developed for sustainable land utilization in urban space governance system. After that, the urban space governance scheme was subject to multi-objective optimization. Finally, experiments were carried out to measure the urban land resource value, and estimate the urban ecological service functions and their values. On this basis, the benefits of the urban space governance scheme were analyzed in various aspects. The results confirm the effectiveness of our measurement algorithm.

Discussions of China's hollowed village reconstruction (HVR) program tend to divide initiatives into community-based model (CBM, led by local actors which is also called bottom-up model) and government-led model (GLM, driven by policy makers which is also called top-down model). In this paper, we propose a theoretical framework, which goes beyond these two models. Then, we take three typical villages which experienced different models of HVR in recent years as case studies, exploring the intersection of the process of decision-making, the structure of governance and the performance of projects. Both theoretical analysis and case studies show that a hybrid governance structure (HGS), with limited range of reconstruction in the distribution and functions of rural land, is most in line with China's background for HVR and rural vitalization. The participatory process is very important for these three modes, with villages and communities as the important carriers for participation and interaction. Not only villagers can truly participate in the planning and decision-making process in the HGS's approach, which enables villagers to have more autonomy, but also enhanced the project's performance by integrating villagers' interests and willingness with government proposals, matching the subjective and the objective conditions. This research indicates that we can integrate diverse driving forces of village revitalization, pay more attention to the governance's structure and operating models of reconstructing. More importantly, this study responds to Elinor Ostrom's common-pool resource theory and suggests a way forward in the public governance of rural vitalization in contemporary China.

The increasingly service-based U.S. economy relies on innovation. While there is considerable research on the importance of certain innovative activities, such as patents, less attention has been paid to unpatented innovation, about which there is naturally less publicly available information. Our study exploits disclosure on the fair value of acquired innovation to show that unpatented innovation plays an important, though often ignored, role in merger value creation. We detail the importance of unpatented technology and show that traditional approaches that rely only on R&D expenditures and patents lead to both misclassification of merger types and underestimates of the impact of innovation in value creation. Our evidence suggests that, on average, unpatented innovation accounts for a larger portion of synergies. We further show that higher (lower) gains accrue to the acquirer (the target) in relation to unpatented innovation, consistent with limited publicly available information about unpatented innovation reducing the target’s bargaining power.

This study investigates the vast potential for space-based technologies and applications in supporting governance to strengthen civil society, bolster democratic processes, and allow for socio-economic development throughout Africa. It offers a comprehensive analysis of African governance levels, existing e-governance systems, African challenges relating to e-governance adoption, and how e-governance solutions can assist in realising the continent's development goals. First, the study explores the integral role of good governance in achieving the UN Agenda 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the AU's Agenda 2063 aspirations. Subsequently, the existing African governance structures established at a continental level are described to provide an overview of the frameworks informing governance within Africa. Specific challenges that need to be overcome to ensure good governance are then addressed and the current governance levels in Africa are evaluated. An assessment of e-government readiness levels both globally and within Africa is offered through an examination of the United Nations E-Government Survey from 2018. Specific barriers to e-government, both abroad and within Africa, are then analysed along with the associated risks relating to e-government systems. It then investigates how digital divides and lack of internet connectivity within Africa can be addressed by new technologies and commitments from both terrestrial and space actors. The opportunities afforded by rapidly growing satellite constellations being deployed to increase connectivity levels and reduce the costs thereof are then analysed in detail and the various planned constellations are assessed on a technical level. Lastly, the potential for Earth Observation and remote sensing data to assist with e-governance activities across sectors including healthcare, education, agriculture, water and sanitation, and emergency responses is investigated.

The European ‘refugee crisis’ has seen the Mediterranean described as: a hot spot in need of better governance and border policing; the world’s deadliest border; and as a humanitarian catastrophe. In Germany, the initial default option was to treat the various articulations of crisis as localized. Keeping the Mediterranean (and thus the crisis) at arm’s length was facilitated by the Dublin II regulations stipulating that asylum claims would only be processed in the state where they were first made. Only in 2015, when large numbers of refugees arrived, the Mediterranean was rearticulated as concerning ‘us’ rather than ‘them’. Focusing on German asylum and refugee debates, this article traces such semantic shifts to show how, counter-intuitively, becoming Mediterranean is enabled by a tacit process of de-Europeanization which instrumentally calls for European solutions only when the ‘crisis’ reaches the national level.

Foreign aid is one of the most important policy tools that developed countries used to help poor countries improve population well-being and facilitate economic and institutional development. However, the effectiveness of aid as an instrument of development has been questioned several times, especially for its deleterious effects on governance. This study examines the effect of foreign aid on economic complexity in developing countries. Using annual data for 78 developing countries over the period 1990-2017, the empirical findings show that foreign aid exerts a negative effect on economic complexity. Although the effect of aid on economic complexity differs across donors, we also find a U-shaped relationship between foreign aid and economic complexity. In addition, the empirical results of this paper show that democracy mitigates the negative effect of foreign aid on economic complexity. Thus, in order to benefit from the effects of foreign aid for better economic complexity, the governments of developing countries would benefit from putting more effort into improving democracy.

Conventional political thought and practice continue to be stifled by a dilemma of choosing between the ideal imaginaries of State and/or Market solutions. Widely presupposed as the only valid possibilities in both theory and practice, this stale dilemma covers up a real multitude of actually existing alternative approaches to governance practiced in civil society. State/Market approaches are identical in the way that they construct a ‘spectator’ role for communities, who are left to choose between their preferred set of rules and norms developed elsewhere. The concept of commoning governance offers an opportunity to break free of this stalemate. It creates a new role for citizens and their communities as ‘sparring partners’; who although they operate within the limits of current State/Market institutions, create new norms and rules against and beyond them. In the paper, we first expand on our understanding of commoning governance: re-designing governance arrangements to serve the common good. That is here understood in terms of (radical) democracy, solidarity and sustainable ecological relationships. Second, we illustrate how commoning efforts on the ground contribute to the reclaiming of the democratic imaginary as a political arena by zooming in to a case study of the three cities involved in civic-led network of German Food Policy Councils. Finally, we reflect on the empirical barriers that communities of commoning endure, and call on policymakers, planners and scholars to interrogate their own normative understandings of citizenship and democracy, and begin to recognize theoretical and latent possibilities by enabling commoning with new or re-designed institutions of governance.

This paper investigates how a democratic environment affects corporate R&D investment around the world. Using a sample of 114,318 observations from 34 countries over the period 2002–2016, we find that democracy is negatively related to R&D expenditure and positively associated with R&D investment efficiency. These findings imply that a democratic environment helps firms improve their corporate governance and thus reduces their overinvestment in R&D projects. In addition, the effects of democracy on both corporate investment in R&D and investment efficiency are stronger when shareholders have strong legal protections. These effects are also stronger at large and highly leveraged firms.

The European Union (EU) aspires to be an important global agenda-setter on how to treat and regulate the growing plastics problem. We present an analysis of the plastic policy narratives shaping European plastics governance, in particular through the European Commission’s Plastics Strategy. Our aim is to first uncover the policy narratives at play, and then examine how actors make use of those narratives through strategic construction. Based on interviews with key stakeholders and document analysis, we identify four narratives: fossil feedstock dependency, resource inefficiency, pollution, and toxicity. We find that the resource inefficiency and pollution narratives figure most prominently in European plastics governance, and that the circular economy is being advanced as a policy solution that cuts across the different narratives. However, surface agreement on the need for ‘circularity’ hides deeper-lying ideological divisions over what exactly the circular economy means and the different directions this implies for plastics governance.

This article focuses on the democracy and legitimacy debates in Zimbabwe after the ouster of Robert Mugabe from power by his erstwhile ally, Emmerson Mnangagwa, in November 2017. President Mnangagwa popularized the terms “Second Republic” and “New Dispensation” to show that his regime differed from Mugabe’s in terms of governance style. The position of this article is that Mnangagwa’s regime could not abandon the system established under the reign of Mugabe. Instead, it argues that the Second Republic reflects continuities of the Mugabe era being transposed into a quasi-military edifice whose commandist approaches denigrate cries for democracy and transparency. This qualitative research draws on data from interviews with political elites in the opposition and ruling parties as well as secondary sources. Este artigo centra-se nos debates sobre democracia e legitimidade no Zimbábue após a destituição de Robert Mugabe do poder pelo seu antigo aliado, Emmerson Mnangagwa, em novembro de 2017. O Presidente Mnangagwa popularizou os termos “Segunda República” e “Nova Dispensação” para mostrar que o seu regime era diferente do de Mugabe em termos de estilo de governação. A posição deste artigo é que o regime de Mnangagwa não podia abandonar o sistema estabelecido sob o reinado de Mugabe. Em vez disso, argumenta que a Segunda República reflete a continuidade da era Mugabe transposta para um edifício quase militar cujas abordagens “comandantes” denigrem os apelos à democracia e à transparência. Esta pesquisa qualitativa baseia-se em dados de entrevistas com elites políticas dos partidos na oposição e no poder, assim como em fontes secundárias.

In this paper we explore Lawrence Stenhouse’s (1981) provocation that too much research has been conducted for the world and not enough for the village. This provocation has taken on additional significance in contemporary global policy contexts where neo-liberal systems of governance incorporate discourses of educational effectiveness, measurement, standards, quality and sustainable development. Reform movements draw attention to what forms of professional development are effective in the complex global-national policy agendas, with diverse cultural-historical and socio-political contexts. Furthermore, teachers’ work is changing and intensifying under neo-liberal systems of governance, specifically what they have to do to interpret and not just to implement policies. Drawing on two contrasting case studies of teacher research in England and Kazakhstan, we examine ‘outside in’ and ‘inside out’ approaches to teacher development. We problematize the concepts of teacher autonomy, the interpretational work of teachers in the context of policy intensification, and strategic compliance as a pragmatic and necessary response to policy frameworks and their intended and unintended consequences. We conclude by suggesting a hybrid, dialectical approach to professional development which sustains teacher autonomy and professionalism.

We synthesise the empirical archival research on the consequences of local social norms on accounting, finance, and corporate governance outcomes in an international setting. The literature reviewed is premised on the theory that corporations do not make decisions, but managers do, and managers are likely to be influenced by the socioeconomic environment of the region in which they operate and/or by the people with whom they interact. To provide a structure to our review, we identify social capital, religiosity, gambling norms, and corruption culture, as four constructs of local social norms and link these with financial reporting and external auditing, financial, investment, and dividend decisions, capital market consequences and finally, corporate governance and corporate social responsibility behaviour of firms. We highlight some limitations of the existing research and offer some suggestions for future research.

This paper takes on the apparent paradox of India’s combination of durable democracy, capable bureaucracy, but a deficient development trajectory. It begins by outlining the nature of the problem. Then it summarizes and compares some significant approaches to drawing connections from governance institutions to development outcomes. Next, it reviews some of the contributions to understanding India’s political economy in the last few decades. Finally, it attempts to draw some lessons from India’s experience for the application of different theories of governance and development. The central lesson is that the paradox recedes when attention is paid to the subnational level, where India’s states encompass considerable variation in initial societal and economic conditions and in development outcomes.

Responding to disasters triggered by natural hazards is a deeply political process, but it is usually presented by practitioners as an apolitical endeavour. This is striking when disasters occur in authoritarian and politically highly polarised conflict-affected settings. Although the literature provides leads as to why and how humanitarians depoliticise aid, there has been little empirical research on the implications of depoliticisation, especially at the community level. Based on qualitative fieldwork that focused on the drought responses that overlapped with the 2016-19 sociopolitical crises in Zimbabwe, this paper details the practices, motivations, and implications of humanitarian depoliticisation. It differentiates between strategic, coerced, and routine managerial depoliticisation, and argues that, in an authoritarian conflict-affected setting, depoliticisation strategically allows state and non-state actors to defuse sensitive issues and actor relations and to remain safe. However, depoliticisation can also have implications for information management, monitoring, accountability, and protection, and thus ultimately for upholding humanitarian principles.يُعدّ التصدي للكوارث التي تسببها الأخطار الطبيعية عملية سياسية عميقة، ولكن عادة ما يقدمها الممارسون على أنها مسعى غير سياسي. يكون هذا مدهشاً عندما تحدث الكوارث في البيئات الاستبدادية والمستقطبة سياسياً للغاية والمتأثرة بالصراع. على الرغم من أن الأدبيات تقدم أدلة حول لماذا وكيف ينزع العاملون في المجال الإنساني المساعدات من السياسة، إلا أنه لم يكن هناك سوى القليل من الأبحاث التجريبية حول الآثار المترتبة على عدم التسييس، خاصة على مستوى المجتمع. استنادًا إلى عمل ميداني نوعي يركز على التصدي لحالات الجفاف المتداخلة مع الأزمات الاجتماعية والسياسية في زيمبابوي في الفترة من 2016-2019، تبيّن هذه المقالة بالتفصيل الممارسات، والدوافع، والآثار المترتبة على عدم تسييس العمل الإنساني. إنه يفرّق بين نزع التسييس الاستراتيجي، والقسري، والاعتيادي، ويناقش بأنه، في بيئة سلطوية متأثرة بالصراع، فإن عدم التسييس على نحو استراتيجي يسمح للجهات الفاعلة الحكومية، والجهات غير الحكومية نزع فتيل القضايا الحساسة، والعلاقات بين الجهات الفاعلة لتبقى آمنة. ومع ذلك، فإن عدم التسييس يمكن أن يكون له أيضاً آثار على إدارة المعلومات، والرصد، والمساءلة، والحماية، وبالتالي دعم المبادئ الإنسانية في نهاية المطاف. كلمات محورية: الاستبداد، الصراع، نزع التسييس، الكارثة، الجفاف، الحوكمة، العمل الإنساني، السياسة، زيمبابوي.对自然灾害引发的灾害作出响应，这是一个非常政治化的过程，但实践者通常将该过程展示为一种非政治的努力。当灾害发生在专制政权和在政治上高度两极化的受冲突影响的背景下时，这一点很明显。尽管文献提供了关于人道主义者为何及如何将援助去政治化的线索，然而，关于去政治化的影响，基于实践经验的研究却很少，尤其是在社区层面。干旱响应与2016年至2019年津巴布韦的社会政治危机重合在一起，根据侧重于该响应的定性实地调查，本文详细阐述了人道主义去政治化的实践、动机和影响。该文章区分了战略性、强迫性和常规管理的去政治化，并主张，在专制政权的受冲突影响的环境下，去政治化在战略上允许国家和非政府行动者化解敏感问题和行动者关系，同时保持安全。然而，去政治化也可以对信息管理、监测、问责和保护产生影响，从而最终对维护人道主义原则产生影响。 关键词：专制主义、冲突、去政治化、灾害、干旱、治理、人道主义、政治、津巴布韦.

Employing an experimental and a survey approach, we examine the effect of voting power on voting behavior at shareholder meetings. To avoid the possible selection bias in archival voting data, we exogenously manipulate the shareholders’ power to affect the outcome. Our findings suggest that voting power nudges shareholders to oppose management and to choose the “right” alternative, that is, to vote against a proposal which ostensibly does not serve the company’s best interest. This effect emerged even when the dissenting vote stood in opposition to that of all their peers’ and even in opposition to self-interest. Furthermore, we find that strategic voting among institutional investors is contingent on voting power: When in a position to affect the outcome, institutional investors tend to take fewer strategic considerations into account and follow fewer consistent patterns in their voting, relative to situations in which their ability to affect the outcome is limited. When confronting the prospect of a “bad” proposal coming before the general shareholders meeting, institutional investors prefer to negotiate terms with management, and vote against it only after negotiations fail. Our results shed additional light on the ‘behind the scenes’ processes involved in shareholder voting and underscore the importance of institutional investor agency to corporate governance, accountability and minority shareholder representation.

It is widely recognised that the formal institutional context affects firm ownership concentration. However, the impact of the informal institutional context has received less research attention. Drawing from institutional theory, we tested our hypothesis that both the formal and informal (cultural) institutional contexts simultaneously influence firm ownership concentration. Based on a firm-level database of the largest 600 listed companies in 19 European countries for the period 2009–2015, we found that both formal and informal institutional contexts, considered independently from each other, affect the level of firm ownership concentration. However, when these institutional contexts are considered together, the significance of the formal institutional context's effect on ownership concentration disappears while the informal (cultural) institutional context remains significant. Specifically, our findings indicate that high power distance, collectivism, uncertainty avoidance, restraint, and short-term orientation favour firm ownership concentration. Overall, our findings demonstrate that the diversity in European cultures explains firms' different levels of ownership concentration across European firms, signalling that the European Union's efforts towards a common regulatory frame may not necessarily lead to a convergence of European firms' ownership structures and, consequently, of corporate governance practices. SI Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad Ministerio de Economía, Industria y Competitividad Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades

Although network governance has become increasingly popular in both research and practice, its anticipated benefits do not always materialize. Although literature on network governance acknowledges the challenges that result from its introduction, scholars tend to assume these challenges can be managed and rarely analyze how the different participating actors (strategically) react to the tensions surrounding its establishment. As such, the process of how “networking” actors establish, maintain, and negotiate a network remains understudied. In light of these shortcomings, this article zooms in on how actors, in their collaboration efforts with network partners, navigate the tensions between (a) their discretionary space and the parameters set by a central policymaker, and (b) their pursuit of both integration and differentiation. This ethnographic case analysis contributes by, first, revealing how local actors demonstrate agency in maneuvering between these tensions in everyday practice by adopting three strategies—that is, overwhelmed deflection, situational segmentation, and strategic reappropriation—and, second, by revealing how these tensions interact and subsequently affect the implementation of policies in networks.

This paper explores the resilience of the urban informal economy through multi-dimensional conflict. Karachi constituted an ideal case study for the research given the intensity and paradigmatic nature of the multi-dimensional conflict experienced in the city between 2008 and 2013. The paper applies a comparative frame in three sites (Sadar, Orangi and Lyari) to illustrate resilience of the informal economy and its role in supporting the urban poor in Karachi to survive and sometimes thrive, whilst also contributing to peaceful recovery and adaptation, albeit persistent divisions mean violence remains possible. The paper argues for greater recognition of and support for informal economies in urban policy, marking a shift away from the predominant neoliberal forms of governance that diminish the role of the state and burden already vulnerable people with the greatest risks, particularly in fragile, conflict-affected situations where half the world’s poor are predicted to live by 2030.

By tackling shared problems through concerted policies, the European Union (EU) is thought to have a superior output legitimacy. However, EU policies change as they are being ���customised��� during the implementation process. How do such patterns of ���differentiated implementation��� affect EU governance in practice? While some studies highlight the danger of ���watering down��� the objectives of EU law, others emphasise the role of decentralised problem-solving. We analyse how customisation affects states��� practical compliance with EU anti-discrimination, environmental, and justice and home affairs directives in 27 member states (excluding Croatia) between 2007 and 2013. The findings show that customised density (higher number of rules than prescribed by the EU directives) reduces practical compliance. Conversely, customised restrictiveness (stricter requirements than the EU directives) improves practical compliance. In contrast to earlier implementation research, we conclude that literal implementation is not the best form to ensure practical implementation.

Executive committees make critical decisions regarding project selection in different ways. In a committee operating under a democratic governance structure, all members have the right to vote, but the majority of voters ultimately decide which projects to undertake. Alternatively, in a committee operating under an elite governance structure, the decision is made only by a restricted number of voters. Therefore, in an elite governance, there are decision makers or “elite” members, and non-decision makers or “common” members. In this article, we study how committee members under either a democratic or elite governance structure interact and communicate information to each other, and ultimately make a decision about a project with uncertain revenues. We find that the efficient committee governance structure, i.e., the one that maximizes the expected surplus of the committee, can be determined by focusing on one specific communication between elite and common committee members. Further, we establish a sufficient condition on the revenues distribution for each governance structure to be efficient. Finally, when this sufficient condition on the revenues distribution does not hold, we find that governance efficiency depends on the probability of the decision makers to learn the true value of the revenues being sufficiently high or the one of the non-decision makers being sufficiently low or both these two conditions.

Argentina is now the world’s third largest producer of transgenic crops. They grow on more than half the cultivated area of the country. Transgenic soy is not only the key crop for the Argentine economy but also for politics and society. The Argentine state and also multinational seed corporations seek to control the soy sector and appropriate rents from it, while the export-oriented soy farmers resist these attempts. To expand studies on environmental conflicts from the social to the ecological dimensions, I analyse the role of the materiality of transgenic soy in the struggles around export taxes and royalties on transgenic seeds, based on the concepts of political crops and resistance or escape crops derived from the anthropology of the state. Furthermore, I incorporate transgenic materiality into the analysis of the economic and physical materiality of political crops and resistance crops. In the case study of Argentina, I demonstrate that the materiality of transgenic soy not only enables control by the state – and in parallel by seed corporations – but that it also enables farmer resistance. Thus, transgenic soy is not only key to state building but inherently comes with the risk to the state of a powerful farmer resistance. Building on the empirical analysis, I connect the concepts of political crops and resistance crops, which have been developed for different types of plants. In the case of Argentina, there were three reasons why the state failed to control transgenic soy: 1) difficulties within the institutional setting of the state to grasp the materiality of soy; 2) the parallel governance structure of the seed corporations as developers of transgenic soy; and 3) the everyday and organised resistance of the soy farmers. For the analysis, I use qualitative and quantitative data collected during my research on transgenic agriculture in Argentina since 2009. The data are mainly analysed by applying qualitative content analysis. My own calculations based on descriptive statistics support parts of the qualitative analysis.

This paper examines the effects of country-level governance—such as voice and accountability, political stability, government effectiveness, regulatory quality, rule of law, and control of corruption—on the capital structure and investment financing decisions of firms. The full sample consists of 31,749 firms in 65 countries between 1996 and 2017. We find that firms operating in countries with stronger governance decrease their leverage while increasing their debt maturity. Specifically, we show that they decrease their reliance on short-term debt issuance while they increase their reliance on long-term debt and equity issuances in financing capital expenditures. Our findings are robust to endogeneity issues and alternative model specifications.

This 1.5-year ethnographic study of a U.S. medical center shows that avoiding loss of autonomy and work intensification for less powerful actors during digital technology introduction and integration presents a multisited collective action challenge. I found that technology-related participation problems, threshold problems, and free rider problems may arise during digital technology introduction and integration that enable loss of autonomy and work intensification for less powerful actors. However, the emergence of new triangles of power allows for novel coalitions between less powerful actors and newly powerful third-party actors that can help mitigate this problem. I extend the political science perspective of experimentalist governance to examine how a digital technology-focused, iterative collective action process of local experimentation followed by central revision can facilitate mutually beneficial role reconfiguration during digital technology introduction and integration. In experimentalist governance of digital technology, local units are given discretion to adapt digital technologies to their specific contexts. A central unit composed of diverse actors then reviews progress across local units integrating similar digital technology to negotiate a new shared understanding of mutually beneficial technology-related tasks for each group of actors. The central unit modifies both local routines and the technology itself in response to problems and possibilities revealed by the central revision process, and the cycle repeats. Here, accomplishing mutually beneficial role reconfiguration occurs through an experimentalist, collective action process rather than through a labor-management bargaining process or a professional-led tuning process.

This study investigates the role of governance quality in maintaining financial stability and enhancing financial inclusion in Asian countries using the stakeholder theory. Composite variables were constructed for the governance quality, financial stability, and financial inclusion dimensions using principal component analysis (PCA). The impact of governance quality on financial stability and financial inclusion was analyzed using dynamic system generalized method of moments (GMM) estimations. Additionally, using Baron and Kenny's approach, the mediating role of financial inclusion in the relationship between governance quality and financial stability was examined. The results obtained were robust to various standardization techniques. This study's findings suggest that governance quality negatively affects financial inclusion but has a positive influence on financial stability. Furthermore, financial inclusion positively affects financial stability in Asia. Finally, based on the results, we conclude that financial inclusion mediates the relationship between governance quality and financial stability.

This study empirically investigates the effect of an Islamic label on environmental, social, and governance (ESG) performance. Islamic firms in Indonesia and Malaysia that are characterized by lower debt and lower non-sharia compliant income and have a higher ethical standard are expected to make a better contribution to the environment and society. Testing firms in Indonesia and Malaysia, two emerging countries in ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations), reveals a significant difference in overall environmental and social performance, but not in governance quality. Also, the study documents the significant effect on performance of using Islamic criteria for leverage, accounts receivable, and cash. Overall, after controlling for some variables and splitting the sample into different time horizons and firm sizes, the study consistently reveals that firms labeled as Islamic have better environmental and social performance, but not governance performance. The relevant policies should be adjusted. Jel classifications G21, G29.

The question whether authoritarian regimes use transparency initiatives to improve public governance or only to perform window dressing remains open. To address it, we examine a recently promulgated transparency policy in China that mandates public access to all judicial opinions. We find that local courts fail to disclose more than 60% of their opinions in corporate litigation cases, measured against a baseline of publicly listed firms’ disclosure of their litigation, as required and enforced by the securities regulations. Instead of upholding judicial fairness, local courts disclose cases selectively, displaying favoritism and responding to private incentives. Courts are more likely to suppress the publication of their opinions when the firm involved in the litigation is state-owned or is the defendant in its home court, especially in the year before the promotion of the provincial party secretary. We also find that firms whose cases are disclosed by the courts undergo adverse economic consequences, signaling that they have fallen out of favor with the government.

We study whether pension fund board governance relates to asset allocation. Pension funds with well-governed boards have greater international diversification, lower cash holdings, and, when pension funds are small, invest more in risky assets. In particular, pension fund boards that establish comprehensive investment policies invest more in equities, in foreign assets, and hold less cash. We argue that a comprehensive investment policy is likely to serve as a proxy for the financial expertise available to the fund while it provides the set up to facilitate decision making. Finally, we further show that the presence of external financial experts is also associated with lower cash holdings.

In the context of Water Framework Directive (WFD) and the objective of ''good ecological status'' of European water bodies, both the idea of river continuity restoration and the river basin approach call for a scalar transformation of water governance based on ecological principles. Among the WFD literature, very few have focused on industrial actors in areas of production and their role implementing or countering these principles. To observe this, it is argued that one must first grasp the sectoral scales linked to economic actors’ practices. We define sectoral scales as the scalar issues related to industries practices and then question how they have been challenged by new environmental scalar configurations. Using case study analysis, this article focus on two industries in southwestern France in the Adour-Garonne hydrographic District, namely hydropower and irrigated agriculture. The results highlight that implementing river continuity restoration and river basin approach challenge the economic and political practices of these industries related to the spatial scope of their production process and their political jurisdiction. In the face of change, industrial actors defend “functional” perimeters for their activities by rescaling water governance in order to keep control over water resources and maintain the institutional arrangements they have forged within those boundaries. In conclusion, we suggest that research on changes of scales relating to water governance should further question economic actors and how their practices are ultimately entangled in specific scales. Only in so doing can we understand deep-rooted obstacles to the implementation of the WFD in areas of production and better grasp social and ecological interdependencies at stake.

Leveraging China’s 2013 anti-corruption campaign (the Campaign) as a quasi-natural experiment and a difference-in-differences (DID) research design, we examine which of the three motives (value relevancy, risk management, or altruism) better explain a firm’s corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities. Our findings suggest that, after the Campaign and conditional on the level of firm corruption-related expenses, firms generally engage in more CSR, which supports the value relevance motive of CSR. Additional analyses suggest that the positive impact of the Campaign on CSR is more salient when: 1) the Campaign is effective in the province in which a firm is located; 2) the financialization level of a province in which a firm is located is high; 3) firms have more political connections interruption in the Campaign; 4) firms have high operating risk; 5) firms are more capable of conducting CSR activities; or 6) the extent of firms’ corporate governance is excellent.

This paper shows that hedge fund activism is associated with a decrease in mergers and acquisitions (M&A) and offer premiums and an increase in stock and operating performance. Activist hedge funds improve target firms’ M&A performance by reducing poor M&A, diversifying M&A, and the M&A of firms with multiple business segments. Activist hedge funds improve target firms’ M&A decisions by influencing their governance practices. We show that our results are unlikely driven by selection bias. Overall, activist hedge funds play an important role in the market for corporate control by increasing the efficiency of target firms’ M&A activities through interventions. This paper was accepted by Gustavo Manso, finance.

Through the application of CRS-SBM-DEA and Durbin model, the results show that the development of financial and trade in China coastal area has a positive impact on environmental pollution control, the environmental quality and the efficiency of resource use. From the micro level, the improvement of GDP leads to the improvement of per capita income, emission efficiency and pollution governance. From the macro level, the overall increase of GDP also has a releasing effect on air pollution. According to the Moran index test, it shows that there is an interaction between PM2.5 and SO2, and regional industrial development has an agglomeration effect on it.

The ANCC Magnet Recognition Program® provides a framework for creating a culture of nursing excellence. Organizations seeking Magnet® designation and subsequent redesignations must create structures and processes to aid in the sustainment of excellence despite challenges that arise such as a pandemic. In this article, we offer strategies for nurse leaders to position their organizations for sustained excellence through enculturation of 3 threads: authentic, transformational leadership; nurse empowerment through strong professional governance structures; and peer engagement strategies that generate energy and enthusiasm. Implementation of these strategies was instrumental to achieving 2 redesignations for the health system.

En la comunidad tecnológica ecuatoriana, específicamente en el Instituto Superior Tecnológico Almirante Illingworth (AITEC), se aprecia insuficiente comprensión de cultura investigativa colaborativa en la formación de los estudiantes de la enseñanza superior tecnológica, insuficientes recursos metodológicos, débil institucionalidad de la investigación en los procesos formativos, y limitadas respuestas a las necesidades del entorno por el desaprovechamiento del potencial estudiantil para producir conocimiento; para darle solución a esta situación problemática, se propone diseñar un modelo heurístico orientado al desarrollo de la cultura investigativa colaborativa en la formación de los estudiantes mediante el diagnóstico del estado de la investigación que permita la retroalimentación conducentes a acciones que impulsen la participación en proyectos, la identificación de la problematización, posibles soluciones y su transferencia como respuesta a las necesidades del entorno. El modelo heurístico se desarrolla a través del Cubo de Gobernabilidad que articula el estado actual con el despliegue estratégico para la mejora de dicho estado. La aplicación del modelo demuestra en la primera fase, una incipiente institucionalidad de la investigación colaborativa, dada fundamentalmente por el comportamiento de los factores influyentes de la dimensión dotación de recursos, mientras que, en la segunda fase, se demuestra la factibilidad de la inclusión para su contribución a la mejora de la dotación de recursos. Se concluye que el modelo heurístico, es viable en sus dimensiones como una herramienta eficaz de diagnóstico y retroalimentación del estado de la investigación para el desarrollo de la cultura investigativa colaborativa, en el contexto de una institución de educación superior, pues auspicia la participación en Investigación desde la propia identidad en la contribución a los problemas del mundo globalizado., At the Admiral Illingworth Higher Technological Institute (AITEC), technological higher education in student training has insufficient understanding of collaborative research culture, insufficient methodological resources, weak research institutions in training processes, and limited responses to the needs of the environment due to the failure to use the student potential to produce knowledge. Therefore, it is proposed to design a heuristic model for the development of collaborative research culture through the diagnosis of the state of research that allows feedback to a consequent response to the needs of the environment with actions that promote participation in projects, the identification of problems, possible solutions and their transfer. The heuristic model is developed through the Governance Cube that articulates the current state with the strategic deployment for the improvement of that state, whose application demonstrates in the first phase an institutionality of collaborative research that begins to manifest itself due to the behavior of the influential factors of the resource endowment dimension, although, the second phase demonstrates the improvement in resource endowment due to the feasibility of inclusion. Thus, the heuristic model is viable for its dimensions as an effective tool for diagnosis and feedback of the state of research, also encourages participation in research of the higher education institution’s own identity in the contribution to the problems of the globalized world.

Funding Information: This open-access publication was funded by the University of Freiburg. Funding Information: Financial support. The project is supported by the Wassernetzwerk Baden-Württemberg (Water Research Network of the State Baden-Württemberg), which is funded by the Ministerium für Wissenschaft, Forschung und Kunst Baden-Württemberg (Ministry of Science, Research and the Arts of the State Baden-Württemberg) (grant no. AZ. 7532.21/2.1.6) and Maa-ja vesitekniikan tuki ry foundation. Doris E. Wendt acknowledges her support as part of the NERC-funded Groundwater Drought Initiative (NE/R004994/1). Lucy J. Barker was supported by the Natural Environment Research Council (NE/R016429/1) as part of the UK-SCAPE programme delivering National Capability. The contributions of Mirek Trnka, Lenka Bartošová, and Jaak Jaagus have been supported by SustES – Adaptation strategies for sustainable ecosystem services and food security under adverse environmental conditions (CZ.02.1.01/0.0/0.0/16_019/0000797). Publisher Copyright: © 2022 Veit Blauhut et al. Drought events and their impacts vary spatially and temporally due to diverse pedo-climatic and hydrologic conditions, as well as variations in exposure and vulnerability, such as demographics and response actions. While hazard severity and frequency of past drought events have been studied in detail, little is known about the effect of drought management strategies on the actual impacts and how the hazard is perceived by relevant stakeholders. In a continental study, we characterised and assessed the impacts and the perceptions of two recent drought events (2018 and 2019) in Europe and examined the relationship between management strategies and drought perception, hazard, and impact. The study was based on a pan-European survey involving national representatives from 28 countries and relevant stakeholders responding to a standard questionnaire. The survey focused on collecting information on stakeholders' perceptions of drought, impacts on water resources and beyond, water availability, and current drought management strategies on national and regional scales. The survey results were compared with the actual drought hazard information registered by the European Drought Observatory (EDO) for 2018 and 2019. The results highlighted high diversity in drought perception across different countries and in values of the implemented drought management strategies to alleviate impacts by increasing national and sub-national awareness and resilience. The study identifies an urgent need to further reduce drought impacts by constructing and implementing a European macro-level drought governance approach, such as a directive, which would strengthen national drought management and mitigate damage to human and natural assets.

This paper considers the cases of urban redevelopment at waterfront and brownfield sites in Copenhagen (Denmark) and Hamburg (Germany) to explore how two municipal governments have pursued divergent kinds of entrepreneurial governance, even as they have aimed to create similar kinds of new-build neighbourhoods. Copenhagen and Hamburg have both engaged in large-scale speculative development projects, simultaneously raising urban land values and adding urban public good. The cities follow a long tradition of using land value capture to raise funds for municipal activities, yet their scopes of action and tools for achieving progress have been shaped by local economic and political conditions. Although both cities began redevelopment at similar kinds of sites in the 1990s, Copenhagen’s municipal government was relatively impoverished, while Hamburg’s municipal government was relatively wealthy. As a result, even though both cities deployed state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and revolving funds models to reinvest revenues in future development, they possessed different potential strategies for increasing intercity competitiveness: Copenhagen’s immediate aim in redeveloping its Ørestad and harbour districts was to fund a citywide mass transit system and thereby enhance competitiveness through infrastructure development, while Hamburg sought to use its HafenCity waterfront redevelopment to boost competitiveness through port modernisation, increased in urban quality and commercial expansion in the city centre. By comparing these two cases, we can better understand the contingent nature of entrepreneurial governance and urban redevelopment processes.

The study seeks to investigate the link between the middle class and institutional consequences in four Arab countries. The study deploys a mixed effect model to measure whether increasing the size of middle class would have a causal effect on institutional outcomes in three important areas: health and education, market-oriented and governance during the period (1990-2015). Finding that larger middle class (proportion of people earning between $4 - $ 13 a day), has negative influence on each of health, tariff, education, and government effectiveness. Also, it has no significant influence on rule of law and corruption.