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This book is about risk management in the public sector, in general, and particularly risk management in public sector organisations. Risk management in the public sector is a much broader topic than risk management in public sector organisations because it touches on many issues of a public nature that are not the direct or sole responsibility of any specific public organisation. Sometimes a public organisation must deal directly with such risks, but often laws and regulations can adequately address broader public risk issues, governments can participate indirectly and behind the scenes, or participation can be in collaboration with private and non-profit organisations. In some cases, government organisations play no role at all.

This chapter focusses on an important contextual issue; the environment in which risk management is practised in the public sector and in which public risks arise. In much of this book, the unique or unusual attributes of the public sector are shown to profoundly affect risk and the forms and functions of risk management. This chapter introduces some of these attributes and highlights their likely impact on risk management. The public environment is one with movable boundaries, and it essentially encompasses any action or object that a society considers public. Over time, attitudes can change about publicness, but a key point is that while government entities occupy part of the public environment, they are not its only inhabitants.

Corporate foundations – entities established to regularize corporate giving at an arm’s length removed from the firm – command substantial resources, root companies in the nonprofit sectors of their host communities, indirectly augment perceptions of corporate responsibility, and help firms to deflect controversies in an attentive global media environment. Despite these important roles, relatively little research has examined the institutional and strategic factors that influence such proximate charitable giving by firms. Using systematic data on foundations linked to S&P 3000 firms in the health sector – a growing domain in which public trust in high-stakes products and services is critical – fixed-effects models illustrate the primary role of network influences on giving: corporate foundations give substantially more in years following higher contributions by other (noncorporate) foundations in the health sector in a firm’s headquarters locality and also following increased contributions by industry peers through their corporate foundations. Giving also appears to reflect strategic reputational concerns, in that foundation contributions increase significantly following controversies associated with the corporate parent’s products and/or services. By contrast, giving tends to decline as the presence of outside directors on a firm’s board increases, as well as when firms carry heavier debt loads. Combined, these findings suggest that corporate foundations serve as a strategic proxy for the firm, reflecting both a company's position in community and interfirm networks while also mitigating the threat of reputational challenges.

We examine the influence of the self-assessment and self-enhancement motives on the choice of comparison organizations in two experimental studies. Study 1 shows that: (1) self-assessment generally prevailed over self-enhancement, guiding decision makers to choose organizations that were more similar and had better performance; (2) self-enhancement was more pronounced under conditions of low performance, leading participants to more frequently choose organizations that were less similar and had lower performance; and (3) self-enhancing comparisons inhibited perceptions of failure and the propensity to make changes. Study 2 extends the results of Study 1 by showing that participants were more likely to choose comparison organizations that had lower performance and were less similar when they were in a self-enhancement mindset than when they were in a self-assessment mindset. The combined effects of self-assessment and self-enhancement on the choice of comparison organizations are discussed in relation to the broader organizational literature on learning from performance feedback.

The current hypothesis on the mechanism of dry and boundary friction conceives solid surfaces in contact as forming very minute welds or adhesions on the isolated areas of true contact. When sliding occurs, these welds are broken and new ones are formed. Other phenomena may also take place during sliding, but the present paper deals only with observations of the adhesion factor.

This paper aims to trace the emergence, rise and eventual fall of Mojo-MDA. Established as a creative consultancy in 1975, Mojo embarked on an ambitious growth strategy that would see it emerge as Australia’s first multinational agency. By examining the agency’s trajectory over the 1970s and 1980s, this paper revisits the story of an Australian agency with boundless confidence to develop a more nuanced understanding of the dynamic role played by corporate culture in the agency's fortunes.

This study uses reports and features published in the Australian advertising trade press, along with other first-hand accounts, including oral history interviews and personal correspondence with former agency staff.

By identifying the forces and influences affecting Mojo-MDA’s outlook and operations, this paper demonstrates the important yet paradoxical role that corporate culture plays in both building and undermining an agency’s ambitions and the need for marketing historians to pay closer attention to it.

This examination of an agency’s inner machinations over an extended period presents a unique perspective of the ways that advertising agencies operate, as well as the forces that drive and impede them, at both national and global levels. The Mojo-MDA story also illustrates the need for marketing and business historians to pay close attention to corporate culture and the different ways that it affects marketing business and practices.

This chapter considers and highlights a different approach to dealing with the white-collar and/or corporate offender that departs from the more commonly used punitive approach utilized by the American criminal justice system. Currently, terms of incarceration for individual offenders and the use of hefty fines and strict regulations against organizational defendants are commonly used draconian punishments. Therefore, this article is designed to remind readers of another viable approach to dealing with white-collar and/or corporate crime, one which utilizes a compliance or cooperative strategy of social control; that is the use of a system of restorative justice.

Under this heading are given each month the principal articles of aeronautical interest appearing in the current issues of the Journals of the leading Professional Societies and Institutions

When machine elements are examined after a period of use it is seldom possible to relate the damage observed with the simple theories of adhesive or abrasive wear. Examples taken from practice are described and explanations offered based on metallurgical and other changes in the affected surface region. It is concluded that further progress in understanding actual wear situations can only come from a multi‐disciplinary approach.

This study aims to examine the effects of competing influences emanating from firms’ social structural context (i.e. sent and received board of director interlocks and industry peers) on the adoption of an institutionally contested corporate governance code provision.

The corporate governance code provision of interest in this research recommends that German firms listed on German stock exchanges should disclose the individual remuneration arrangements for their board members. This paper uses 945 firm year observations from 2002 to 2006, the time period during which the adoption of this provision was voluntary for firms, to examine the role of firms’ social structural context in the legitimization process of this provision.

The results show that sent board interlocks to firms that defy pressures to adopt this practice have an equally pronounced but opposing effect on its institutionalization process. Received interlocks are inconsequential in this process. The results also provide evidence for the existence of competing influences emanating from firms’ industry peers. In contrast to the effects associated with sent board interlocks, at the industry level, peer acquiescence has a more pronounced effect than peer defiance. Furthermore, the practice’s legitimacy among firms’ peers moderates the effects of sent board interlocks.

The results of this paper suggest that a balanced approach to studying institutional change in corporate governance needs to acknowledge the co-existence of conflicting signals regarding the spread of new institutional models. The findings suggest that firms’ social structural context plays a central role in processes of contested institutional change. Board interlocks and industry peers carry the potential to facilitate institutional change and facilitate institutional continuity and resistance to change. However, not all board interlocks are of equal importance, and industry peers constitute a source of legitimacy to which directors forming the interlocks attend.

The purpose of this study is to review a major section of the literature on benchmarking practices in order to achieve better perspectives for emerging benchmarking research streams.

The paper examines the benchmarking literature and presents a framework that suggests evolving patterns of firms' benchmarking practices. This paper examines the studies published in Benchmarking: An International Journal and other articles related to benchmarking practices in major Strategic Management, OM/SCM, and Technology Management journals from 2001 to 2010.

Benchmarking remains an important strategic tool of business in turbulent times. Five research dimensions for benchmarking are discussed in terms of the following: strategy‐based benchmarking; operational effectiveness‐based benchmarking; technical efficiency‐based benchmarking; and micro‐macro integrative benchmarking. For sustainable competitive advantage, benchmarking goes beyond the operational level and moves into a wide range of value chain, strategic, operational, and project levels.

The study contributes to the benchmarking literature by identifying key areas of benchmarking. It reflects a qualitative orientation, but future research may achieve a more systematic and quantitative analysis of the benchmarking literature.

This review paper is unique in that it examines the benchmarking literature and summarizes the results in order to gain a proper understanding of benchmarking and provide perspectives for future research.