Daniel J. Caron and David Giauque
To compare and contrast the changes introduced in Canada and Switzerland as a result of public management reforms and explore the ethical challenges they entail.
Abstract
Purpose
To compare and contrast the changes introduced in Canada and Switzerland as a result of public management reforms and explore the ethical challenges they entail.
Design/methodology/approach
This is a case study of two countries based in part on secondary sources but also on observations made by the authors.
Findings
The strategies used in each country are different reflecting their distinct political institutions. But there is a commonality, namely the emergence of new ethical problems related to the changes under way. Each country has tackled these new ethical challenges in similar ways. Individual and group behaviour of both Canadian and Swiss civil servants is regulated through “external controls” (codes of ethics, rules of conduct), but also by means of the socialization of new professional values (quality of customer service, flexibility, innovation, creativity, efficiency and effectiveness). These external controls and new values are insufficient, however, to allow civil servants to develop their own capacity for ethical deliberation, an essential condition for enhancing ethical behaviour in modern public administrations.
Research limitations/implications
The findings are not based on a systematic comparative study and can only therefore be interpreted as indicative.
Originality/value
The writers offer an interesting model relating to methods of behaviour regulation in an ethical public service and the need to ensure that the public good and the public interest remain at the core of public servants identity.
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Marie-Andrée Caron, Nathalie Drouin, Skander Ben Abdallah and Camélia Radu
Social needs of local community are highly essential in the context of public infrastructure and have an impact on their performance. This paper explores the local community…
Abstract
Purpose
Social needs of local community are highly essential in the context of public infrastructure and have an impact on their performance. This paper explores the local community subjectivity in interaction with primary stakeholders to deepen our understanding of social value and this category of misunderstood stakeholders.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper presents a partnership framework that aims to help stakeholders be reflexive and construct knowledge about social value of the infrastructure. The empirical material includes an extensive review of the public infrastructure documents published between 1981 and 2021 and 13 interviews with key members of local community.
Findings
The main contribution of this study is an integrated model to study the social value of an infrastructure and a dynamic approach to study how a local community engages and enacts social value. The dynamic approach highlights three plans of stakeholder’s subjectivity, which are relational, representational and operational plans to promote inclusive stakeholder’s management (“of” and “for”).
Originality/value
The study combines an analytical and a theoretical framework to investigate the enactment of social value.
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Jennifer S. Reinke and Catherine A. Solheim
Using Andersen’s (1968) behavioral model of health services use as a guiding conceptual framework, this study examined how receipt of family-centered care relates to the perceived…
Abstract
Purpose
Using Andersen’s (1968) behavioral model of health services use as a guiding conceptual framework, this study examined how receipt of family-centered care relates to the perceived family challenges for families of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD).
Design
Data from the 2009–2010 National Survey of Children with Special Health Care Needs (NS-CSHCN) were analyzed for 812 parents of children with ASD.
Findings
Multiple regression analyses provided substantive statistical evidence that a child’s race, the adequacy of a family’s insurance, and the stability of child’s health care needs significantly contributed to predicting his or her receipt of family-centered care. Further results suggested a relationship between receipt of family-centered care and the perception of challenge for these families; families receiving family-centered care perceive fewer challenges and feel less unmet need for child health services.
Value
Family-centered professionals provide critical voices in the development of policies and programs geared toward improving the health outcomes of children with ASD and their families.
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Samuel Ribeiro-Navarrete, Daniel Palacios-Marqués, José María Martín Martín and José Manuel Guaita Martínez
This study contributes to the limited literature on crowdlending by providing a data-driven analysis of the sector. A synthetic DP2 indicator is proposed to identify the leaders…
Abstract
Purpose
This study contributes to the limited literature on crowdlending by providing a data-driven analysis of the sector. A synthetic DP2 indicator is proposed to identify the leaders of the crowdlending market, the key factors behind their success and the medium-term competitive implications.
Design/methodology/approach
The study examines 17 crowdlending platforms and eight performance indicators. The information provided by these indicators is aggregated using a synthetic indicator based on the P2 Distance (DP2) method.
Findings
Mintos, Evoestate, Peerberry, Bondster and Fellow Finance are the leading platforms. This method reveals the key variables in the identification of market leaders, namely year-on-year variation in the number of investors and year-on-year variation in lending per investor. The leaders in terms of lending volumes should not take their current situation for granted. Small and medium-sized platforms are pushing hard and may overtake the incumbents as market leaders.
Practical implications
Financial intermediation through crowdlending is becoming an increasingly popular alternative to traditional models. Changes in the sector are expected in the coming years due to the rise of platforms with a moderate amount of lending and solid year-on-year improvement. To become leaders and to attract both lenders and borrowers, platforms are encouraged to improve the information that they provide.
Originality/value
This paper offers the first analysis of market leadership in the crowdlending sector. It analyses the competitive market of the crowdlending sector based on its actors and key factors. These factors explain the differences in the market position of different platforms. Based on this analysis, the trends in this sector can be identified. This study is exploratory, so it offers empirical data that can be useful in the development of theories that apply to the sector.
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Marie-Andrée Caron, Camélia Radu and Nathalie Drouin
The complexity of the integration of non-financial benefits (NFB) in major infrastructure projects (MIP) engenders the formulation of networked knowledge between researchers and…
Abstract
Purpose
The complexity of the integration of non-financial benefits (NFB) in major infrastructure projects (MIP) engenders the formulation of networked knowledge between researchers and practitioners. The authors’ research question is as follows: To what extent does scientific knowledge about the integration of NFB into MIP support engaged scholarship or co-construction of knowledge between researchers and practitioners?
Design/methodology/approach
The paper uses a review of literature published in academic journals on the integration of NFB in MIP. Nearly 300 papers are analysed in depth, based on categories (aspects and sub-aspects) inspired from engaged scholarship and paradoxical participation approaches. The culture of collaboration and the notion of boundary objects are the two main aspects of this categorization of journal papers.
Findings
First, research on the integration of NFB into MIP is either project-oriented or society-oriented but in a larger proportion for society-oriented. Second, a lot of researches favour an analytic over a holistic approach, despite their openness to dialogue with practitioners through the complexity and conflict.
Practical implications
It contributes to the theorization of the engaged scholarship. It also provides insights about research avenues to be exploited where these aspects were not sufficiently exploited, as it is often the case with sustainability, for a better collaboration between researchers and practitioners. Linking the culture of collaboration, boundary objects and knowledge co-creation in the engaged scholarship setting encourages a better understanding of the needs (problem to be resolved) of practitioners, by themselves and the researchers.
Originality/value
The systematic review was conducted in parallel with the organization of two workshops with participants concerned by the integration of NFB into MIP. The paper identified four clusters from their level of compatibility with engaged scholarship.
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Many jurisdictions fine illegal cartels using penalty guidelines that presume an arbitrary 10% overcharge. This article surveys more than 700 published economic studies and…
Abstract
Many jurisdictions fine illegal cartels using penalty guidelines that presume an arbitrary 10% overcharge. This article surveys more than 700 published economic studies and judicial decisions that contain 2,041 quantitative estimates of overcharges of hard-core cartels. The primary findings are: (1) the median average long-run overcharge for all types of cartels over all time periods is 23.0%; (2) the mean average is at least 49%; (3) overcharges reached their zenith in 1891–1945 and have trended downward ever since; (4) 6% of the cartel episodes are zero; (5) median overcharges of international-membership cartels are 38% higher than those of domestic cartels; (6) convicted cartels are on average 19% more effective at raising prices as unpunished cartels; (7) bid-rigging conduct displays 25% lower markups than price-fixing cartels; (8) contemporary cartels targeted by class actions have higher overcharges; and (9) when cartels operate at peak effectiveness, price changes are 60–80% higher than the whole episode. Historical penalty guidelines aimed at optimally deterring cartels are likely to be too low.
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Carlos Flavián, Alfredo Pérez-Rueda, Daniel Belanche and Luis V. Casaló
The automation of services is rapidly growing, led by sectors such as banking and financial investment. The growing number of investments managed by artificial intelligence (AI…
Abstract
Purpose
The automation of services is rapidly growing, led by sectors such as banking and financial investment. The growing number of investments managed by artificial intelligence (AI) suggests that this technology-based service will become increasingly popular. This study examines how customers' technology readiness and service awareness affect their intention to use analytical AI investment services.
Design/methodology/approach
Hypotheses were tested with a data set of 404 North American-based potential customers of robo-advisors. In addition to technology readiness dimensions, the potential customers' characteristics were included in the framework as moderating factors (age, gender and previous experience with financial investment services). A post-hoc analysis examined the roles of service awareness and the financial advisor's name (i.e., robo-advisor vs. AI-advisor).
Findings
The results indicated that customers' technological optimism increases, and insecurity decreases, their intention to use robo-advisors. Surprisingly, feelings of technological discomfort positively influenced robo-advisor adoption. This interesting finding challenges previous insights into technology adoption and value co-creation as analytical AI puts customers into a very passive role and reduces barriers to technology adoption. The research also analyzes how consumers become aware of robo-advisors, and how this influences their acceptance.
Originality/value
This is the first study to analyze the role of customers' technology readiness in the adoption of analytical AI. The authors link the findings to previous technology adoption and automated services' literature and provide specific managerial implications and avenues for further research.
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Academic literature and news media on young people’s activism predominantly champions young people who align with liberal or progressive values, evident most recently in the…
Abstract
Academic literature and news media on young people’s activism predominantly champions young people who align with liberal or progressive values, evident most recently in the youth-led climate strikes around the world. Research is often undertaken by scholars who see their work as advocacy for children and young people, countering deficit-based depictions of politically disengaged or ill-informed youth. Yet, this scholarship rarely includes young people whose forms of political activism align with conservative, right-wing, or even alt-right politics. Such ‘selective advocacy’ reinforces a limited picture of the who and what of young people’s political participation. In this chapter, I explore what it might mean for the field of youth studies to provide a more complex picture of young people’s activism and the necessary discomfort that emerges when the desire to advocate for young research participants conflicts with a researcher’s own political and moral concerns. Through a feminist post-structural frame, I examine media and public discourses surrounding instances of young people’s activism in conservative, right-wing, and alt-right spaces. I present the case of a conservative protest organised by a group of university students and targeting a drag queen hosted children’s story time at a library in Brisbane, Australia. This case highlights the importance of maintaining ‘epistemic uncertainty’ when it comes to the complexity of youth and activism. If we are to provide a fuller picture of youth activism, I argue that it is important not to overlook less ‘comfortable’ forms that do not neatly align with the progressive advocacy that dominates the field of youth studies.
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The purpose of this chapter is to provide a personal-professional reflection on Canadian author Toni Samek’s learning since publication of her 2007 book project entitled…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this chapter is to provide a personal-professional reflection on Canadian author Toni Samek’s learning since publication of her 2007 book project entitled Librarianship and human rights: A twenty-first century guide.
Methodology/approach
The reflection, written in first-person and accessible terms appealing to a broad readership, is structured by the following sections: introduction; privilege and position; sobering experiences; the risk factor; a common project; unease; expectation; and, closing thoughts.
Practical implications
This endeavor encourages contributors to the field of library and information studies to situate their work within micro (individuals), meso (institutions), and macro (society) level understandings of privilege and power, including respect for the compassion and conviction demonstrated by street-level library and information workers who may never be rewarded for their good fights, or worse, may suffer loss(es) because of them.
Originality/value
This reflective work affirms the book’s original dedication in Librarianship and human rights: A twenty-first century guide to the many courageous library and information workers throughout the world and through the generations who have taken personal and professional risk to push for social change, as well as the enduring value of librarianship and human rights as a common project and one that involves both learning and unlearning. Librarianship and human rights: A twenty-first century guide was used as an example, when in 2007, activist librarian proposed the subject heading “critical librarianship” to the Cataloging and Support Office of the Library of Congress. This reflection adds to that case.
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Bart A. Lameijer, Jiju Antony, Hans P. Borgman and Kevin Linderman
Although scholars have considered the success factors of process improvement (PI) projects, limited research has considered the factors that influence failure. The purpose of this…
Abstract
Purpose
Although scholars have considered the success factors of process improvement (PI) projects, limited research has considered the factors that influence failure. The purpose of this paper is to extend the understanding of PI project failure by systematically reviewing the research on generic project failure, and developing research propositions and future research directions specifically for PI projects.
Design/methodology/approach
A systematic literature review protocol resulted in a total of 97 research papers that are reviewed for contributions on project failure.
Findings
An inductive category formation process resulted in three categories of findings. The first category are the causes for project failure, the second category is about relatedness between failure factors and the third category is on failure mitigation strategies. For each category, propositions for future research on PI projects specifically are developed. Additional future research directions proposed lay in better understanding PI project failure as it unfolds (i.e. process studies vs cross-sectional), understanding PI project failure from a theoretical perspective and better understanding of PI project failure antecedents.
Originality/value
This paper takes a multi-disciplinary and project type approach, synthesizes the existing knowledge and reflects upon the developments in the field of research. Propositions and a framework for future research on PI project failure are presented.