Max French and Ali Mollinger-Sahba
Modern public service systems tackle many complex issues by operating across institutional boundaries. Performance management must operate in this context without clear lines of…
Abstract
Purpose
Modern public service systems tackle many complex issues by operating across institutional boundaries. Performance management must operate in this context without clear lines of accountability or central authority. This paper introduces and develops the theoretical mechanism of “performance attraction” to describe how outcomes and associated performance indicators can operate as organising instruments in inter-institutional contexts by attracting, rather than directing, institutional behaviour.
Design/methodology/approach
We explore the “performance attractor” role played by outcomes through a multiple case study analysis of three prominent outcomes frameworks operating at the regional, national and international levels: the Scottish Government's National Performance Framework, the Western Australian Alliance to End Homelessness Outcomes Measurement and Evaluation Framework and the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals.
Findings
We find support for two theorised mechanisms facilitated by the performance attractor concept: (1) that performance attractors enable coordination by creating a shared sense of responsibility for interdependent goals while also permitting autonomous navigation of individual contexts and (2) that performance attractors support performance improvement by motivating collective learning and adaptation informed by institutional interdependencies. Cases relied primarily on voluntary adoption of outcomes frameworks, rather than utilising more coercive forms of accountability. Further studies should explore the institutional response to performance attractors to better understand the potential of this mechanism.
Originality/value
The paper contributes to a growing body of critical literature that has explored alternatives to traditional control-oriented performance management in complex and inter-institutional settings. We describe design principles that policymakers and practitioners can adopt to construct more effective performance frameworks in these conditions.
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Max French, Katharine McGowan, Mary Lee Rhodes and Sharon Zivkovic
Parichat Sinlapates and Thawaree Chinnasaeng
This study aims to investigate whether the zero-investment portfolio strategy generates higher excess returns for all listed companies in the Stock Exchange of Thailand (SET) or…
Abstract
This study aims to investigate whether the zero-investment portfolio strategy generates higher excess returns for all listed companies in the Stock Exchange of Thailand (SET) or ESG100 stocks. The study period is from January 2016 to December 2020, a total of 60 months. The dividend yield is employed for categorizing the stock into value and growth stocks. The strategy of buying value stocks and short-selling growth stocks is then applied. The results show that investing using the zero-investment portfolio strategy can generate higher returns in an investment portfolio that consists of ESG100 stocks than in an investment portfolio that consists of all stocks in the SET. The optimal holding periods for investing in portfolios that consist of stocks in the SET are 6 months, 9 months, and 12 months, and the optimal holding periods for a portfolio that consists of ESG100 stocks is 6 months. To explain excess returns of stocks in the SET, the Fama and French (2015) five-factor model is employed. There is no relation between risk factors and excess returns for the holding period of 6 months and 12 months. However, excess return is found to have a negative relation with the market risk premium factor for a 9-month holding period. The excess returns of ESG100 stocks are also inversely correlated with investment factors for a holding period of 6 months.
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The trajectory of François Perroux across the Vichy regime poses about all possible range of methodological issues to the historian of ideas: individual versus collective…
Abstract
The trajectory of François Perroux across the Vichy regime poses about all possible range of methodological issues to the historian of ideas: individual versus collective biography, ideational versus ideological reading, internal versus external analysis, etc. The chapter outlines key elements about Perroux’s trajectory showing the entanglements and boundaries of science and politics in the transition from democratic to authoritarian rule and vice versa. A particular emphasis on uncertainties and adjustments shows, against the tendency to a teleological explanation induced by a linear interpretation of his career, that different paths were considered by Perroux, but that his choices were nevertheless constrained by the forces of both the scientific and political fields.
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So-called classical sociology took shape during perhaps the high point of a world dominated by imperial states. In the “west” the British, French, and German empires, along with a…
Abstract
So-called classical sociology took shape during perhaps the high point of a world dominated by imperial states. In the “west” the British, French, and German empires, along with a surging America, claimed political and sometimes territorial control over wide stretches of the globe. Beyond Europe and the United States, while the Ottoman and Qing empires were in there last days, new states were staking out their imperial claims such as Japan and Russia. The tension between a reality of empire and an ideal of sovereign nation-states eventually exploded in WWI. Curiously, much of this dynamic, especially the global power of empire, went theoretically unnoticed by the makers of modern sociology. This chapter explores this theme through a sketch of the failure of this theoretical reckoning in Marx, Weber, and Durkheim.
The king's speech on the occasion of the opening of Parliament contained the announcement that further measures are to be proposed during the present Session for dealing with the…
Abstract
The king's speech on the occasion of the opening of Parliament contained the announcement that further measures are to be proposed during the present Session for dealing with the adulteration of dairy produce. It may be hoped that among other things this statement foreshadows an intention on the part of the Government to deal in some way with the drugging of milk and milk products—for the purpose of establishing somewhat more effective legal checks upon the abominable practice referred to than any which are at present applicable. As anything in the nature of comprehensive legislation appears to bo out of the question, we must be thankful for what we can get; and while many improvements in the law are required to enable other forms of sophistication and adulteration of dairy produce to be more effectively controlled, the amendment which is of primary importance is one which will take the direction indicated above, since the public health is directly and far more seriously affected by the ingestion of food containing “preservative” chemicals than by the use of merely impoverished or “faked” products—injurious and dangerous as some of these may nevertheless be particularly to infants and invalids.
Marwa M. El-Ashmouni and Ashraf M. Salama
The purpose of this paper is to develop an analytical account on the contemporary architecture of Cairo with emphasis on the past three decades, from the early 1990s to the…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to develop an analytical account on the contemporary architecture of Cairo with emphasis on the past three decades, from the early 1990s to the present. The paper critically analyses narratives of the plurality of “isms”, within architectural vocabulary and discourse, that resulted from the contextual particularities that shaped it.
Design/methodology/approach
Three lines of inquiry are envisioned as overarching aspects of architecture: the chronological, the interventional and the representational. These discussions are underpinned by the discourse of decolonialisation and cosmopolitanism, posited sequentially by Frantz Fanon in The Wretched of the Earth (1961), and Ulrich Beck in The Cosmopolitan Vision (2004). The analysis expands to interrogate these two notions as prelude for reflecting on representations of selected projects: The Smart Village (2001); the Great Egyptian Museum (2002), Al-Azhar Park (2005), American University in Cairo New Campus (2008/2009), and the New Administrative Capital (2018).
Findings
The investigation on the interventional and the representational levels via aspects of discursivity and contradictions highlights that decolonisation and cosmopolitanism are two inseparable facets in the architectural practice in Egypt’s 21st century. These indivisible notions are based on idiosyncratic core to human experience, which emerged from concurrent overturning historical and secular everyday life striving to suppress ideological supremacy.
Research limitations/implications
Further detailed examples can be developed to offer discerning elucidations relevant to both notions of cosmopolitanism and decolonialisation.
Originality/value
The paper offers novel theoretical analysis of Cairo’s most recent architecture. The reflection on the notions of decolonialisation and cosmopolitanism is a timely example of the complex cultural encounters that have shaped the Egyptian architecture, given the recent interventions by the “Modern State” that legitimised such notions.
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The Aakash tablet was developed as a social innovation (SI) to transform India’s higher education sector. This paper aims to explain the failure of the Aakash tablet beyond the…
Abstract
Purpose
The Aakash tablet was developed as a social innovation (SI) to transform India’s higher education sector. This paper aims to explain the failure of the Aakash tablet beyond the typical explanations of deficiencies in the device’s technical capabilities. This paper argues that an SI lens provides a stronger explanation for its failure than the standard analyses built primarily on the technological viability of the device.
Design/methodology/approach
The Aakash project ran from 2010 to 2015. During this period, a number of government and policy reports as well as mainstream media articles were published on the device. Since 2015, a number of academic articles have been published on the Aakash emphasizing its failure as a technological solution. The authors draw on these sources to frame an understanding of the Aakash’s failure informed by SI theory.
Findings
Through a complexity-informed analysis, the authors show that the failure of the Aakash stemmed from flawed assumptions and a failure of the initiative to engage with both the particular and constantly changing features of the broader landscape of needs and opportunities.
Originality/value
This study draws attention to failure as a legitimate aspect of the study of SI. In presenting a “counter-case” to the usual success stories, it shows that the SI lens can also explain why an SI does not take off. It thereby adds to the literature on SI and complexity theory through an exploration of the complex interactions among public policy goals, technological advancements and entrepreneurship.
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Billie Lythberg, Jamie Newth and Christine Woods
The purpose of this paper is to explore how a complexity informed understanding of Indigenous–settler relationships helps people to better understand Indigenous social innovation…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore how a complexity informed understanding of Indigenous–settler relationships helps people to better understand Indigenous social innovation. To do this, this paper uses the attractor concept from complexity thinking to explore both the history and possible futures of Indigenous Maori social innovation as shaped by Te Tiriti o Waitangi/Treaty of Waitangi.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper frames Te Tiriti as a structural attractor for social innovation in Aotearoa-New Zealand and explores the dynamics at play in the social and economic activities related to Te Tiriti and the ongoing settlement process in Aotearoa-New Zealand. This paper outlines this as an illustrative case study detailing the relevant contextual spaces and dynamics that interact and the emergence of social innovation.
Findings
This paper suggests that the convergent, divergent and unifying dynamics present in a structural attractor provide a useful framework for building ongoing engagement between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people whereby Indigenous worldviews are given space to be articulated and valued.
Originality/value
In spite of the increase in research into social innovation, including in Indigenous contexts, the “context” of “postcolonial” context remains under-theorised and people’s understanding of the power dynamics at play here limits the understanding of how the mechanisms of Indigenous–settler partnerships structure social innovation and its impact.