The Government As Venture Capitalist: Organisational Structure and Contract Design in Germany's Privatisation Process

This paper examines the role that organisation structure and contract design played in resolving economic and political problems that arose during Germany's privatisation process. We find that German officials structured organizations and contracts in a way that made credible the government's commitment to rapid privatisation. This credibility served to protect the process from political and social opposition. In addition, it enabled Germany to attract talented private sector managers to its privatisation effort. This began with the establishment of an independent privatisation agency, the Treuhand. It culminated with the creation of another set of independent organisations called Management KGs, to which the Treuhand outsourced part of its restructuring, management and privatisation work. The Treuhand provided funding to this effort, thus serving as a kind of venture capitalist.     

The Bolivian Social Investment Fund: An Analysis of Baseline Data for Impact Evaluation

The Bolivian Social Investment Fund (SIF) is a financial institutionthat promotes sustainable investments in the social sectors,principally in the areas of health, education, and sanitation.This article shows how to use preintervention data collectedfor evaluating the SIF to improve the targeting of a program,to test the quality of the evaluation design, and to definecorrective measures if necessary. It finds that among SIF interventionsthe benefits in education are distributed relatively equallyover the population, while the investments in health and sanitationfavor better-off communities. The article contributes to the methods used to evaluate socialinvestment funds and similar programs. It compares two typesof evaluation designs to assess social investment fund interventionsin the education sector. The authors demonstrate that a simplematched-comparison design introduces a bias in the estimateof the program effect, whereas an experimental design basedon random assignment does not. With preintervention data, theanalyst can select a quasi or indirect experiment, where thechoice of the indirect experiment coincides with the selectionof valid instrumental variables. The availability of preinterventiondata makes it possible to compare the two types of evaluationdesigns as well as to test the validity of the instruments andto determine the loss of efficiency due to the use of quasi-experimentaltechniques instead of random treatment assignment.     

Evaluation of psychosocial and organizational factors in offshore safety: a comparative study

This study compares UK and Norwegian offshore workers' evaluations of social and organizational factors that can have an impact upon safety on offshore installations. A total of 1138 Norwegian (87% response rate) and 622 UK workers (40% response rate) responded to a self-completion questionnaire, which was distributed to 18 installations in February/March 1994. The questionnaire contained six scales that were suitable and relevant for the purposes of comparison. These scales measured ‘risk perception’, ‘satisfaction with safety measures’, ‘perceptions of the job situation’, ‘attitudes to safety’, ‘perceptions of others' commitment to safety’ and ‘perceptions of social support’. The data show clear differences in how UK and Norwegian workers evaluate various social and organizational factors that can have an impact upon safety, however, eta² analysis indicated that for most of the scales ‘installation’ explained a greater percentage of the variance than sector. The exceptions to this were scales measuring ‘safety attitudes’ where both sector and installation contributed equally to the effects. Although the results from the ‘safety attitudes’ scales should be interpreted with caution (due to low internal reliability), it is possible that they are tapping into more deeply held beliefs about the nature of safety, e.g. ‘fatalism’ and the ‘causes of accidents’. In contrast, the other scales are measuring factors directly related to the working environment such as perceptions of risk and satisfaction with safety measures on the installation. These may reflect the prevailing ‘safety climate’ or ‘atmosphere’ on the installations surveyed, whereas constructs such as ‘fatalism’, etc. may be reflections of underlying ‘cultural’ values. Recognizing the existence of different ‘safety cultures’ and understanding the processes which lie behind them could have implications for safety management in an industry which is highly international in nature and in which workers' are often required to work in foreign countries for varying periods of time.     

保险业抗击新冠肺炎疫情的回顾、反思与启迪

在抗击新冠肺炎疫情的过程中,保险业以高度的社会责任感和专业精神,积极响应,迅速行动,得到了政府、社会和客户的广泛好评。但与此同时,保险业作为社会风险管理制度安排,在抗击疫情中,特别是在减少疫情影响、确保经济稳定方面,能够发挥的作用相对有限。为此,保险业要以这次抗击疫情为契机,按照问题导向的原则,正本清源地开展系统性总结与反思,进行全面整改与提升。首先,需要提高站位,全面融入现代社会治理体系,通过理论、技术和模式创新,为公共安全和公共卫生突发事件管理,以及社会稳定和经济发展发挥应有和更大的作用;其次,这次抗击疫情凸显了保险行业发展理念、经营模式和管理技术的许多深层次问题,保险业不应就事论事地看问题,而应在全面回顾、总结和反思的基础上,追根溯源、抽丝剥茧地分析原因,拨乱反正、举一反三地进行整改,将这次抗击疫情作为推动行业全面深化改革和转型升级的重要机遇和动力。     

The interdependencies of intra- and inter-organisational controls and work practices—The case of domestic care of the elderly

The paper gives a grounded account of inter-organisational controls and work practices in the public sector to complement previous literature's strong focus on inter-organisational customer–supplier relationships in the private sector. We draw theoretically on Hopwood's (1974) administrative, social and self controls, which enable us to analyse the influence of non-managerial controls on behaviour. Empirically, a case study of inter-organisational cooperation between home help units and health centres is used as the basis of analysis. Most inter-organisational controls were developed locally and involved a mix of administrative, social and self controls. Intra- and inter-organisational social and self controls were important forms of control which impacted on intra- and inter-organisational work practices and we see the need for a broad conceptualisation of control (Van der Meer-Kooistra and Scapens, 2008). Inter-organisational social controls created an informal hierarchy that by-passed the formal hierarchies of the two organisations. Self controls reinforced the importance of being flexible to accommodate pensioner's wishes and needs in specific care situations. We also show the importance of the internal financial situation of home help units for the analysis of the interdependencies of intra- and inter-organisational controls and work practices.     

Empowerment: the emperor's new clothes

Everyone talks about empowerment, but it's not working. CEOs subtly undermine empowerment. Employees are often unprepared or unwilling to assume the new responsibilities it entails. Even change professionals stifle it. When empowerment is used as the ultimate criteria of success in organizations, it covers up many of the deeper problems that they must overcome. To understand this apparent contradiction, the author explores two kinds of commitment: external and internal. External commitment--or contractual compliance--is what employees display when they have little control over their destinies and are accustomed to working under the command-and-control model. Internal commitment occurs when employees are committed to a particular project, person, or program for their own individual reasons or motivations. Internal commitment is very closely allied with empowerment. The problem with change programs designed to encourage empowerment is that they actually end up creating more external than internal commitment. One reason is that these programs are rife with inner contradictions and send out mixed messages like "do your own thing--the way we tell you." The result is that employees feel little responsibility for the change program, and people throughout the organization feel less empowered. What can be done? Companies would do well to recognize potential inconsistencies in their change programs; to understand that empowerment has its limits; to establish working conditions that encourage employees' internal commitment; and to realize that morale and even empowerment are penultimate criteria in organizations. The ultimate goal is performance.     

Entwicklung des Nebeneinanders von Privat- und Sozialversicherung in den Niederlanden

In the Netherlands, a “dual system” with a public and private sector has been established for health insurance. The advantage of this system is that the positive aspects of a good social policy with room for the employer are combined in order to avoid the buroc-racy and rigidity of a purely public system. In spite of the good experiences with this system over the last years, the Public Health Service is changing and innovations must be given a chance. This explains the willingness of the Netherlands to exchange practical experience with other countries and to discuss with other EU members the possibility of a combined orientated development of the Public Health Service system within the EU.     

Nigerian SMEs: Commitment and loyalty to their banks

Commitment has a crucial role to play in underpinning long-term business relationships, and as such, is well established in the related academic literature. Limited research does, however, exist pertaining to the specific relationships between SMEs and their banks. This paper presents and assesses commitment relationship framework that seeks to evaluate such relationships. Various validated scale-sets from the existing studies are combined here to assess commitment, advocacy and repurchase intention. Data were collected from 199 SMEs via interviews with owners or senior (financial) managers. Their assessment involved exploratory factor analysis to determine underlying data structure, with internal reliability assessment of the identified factors. Commitment is established around two components; affective and calculative, whilst advocacy and repurchase intention converge into a single behavioural intentions factor. The two-dimensional presentation of commitment and behavioural intentions are also distinct. Originality lies in the validation of commitment and behavioural intention constructs within this specific business arena and geographical location, as well as showcasing research that involves engagement with smaller organisations rather than their larger counterparts in the consideration of bank performance.     

The institutional work of hospital risk managers: democratizing and professionalizing risk management

The growing importance of risk management programs and policies in health care organizations has given rise to a new organizational figure, the risk managers. This paper seeks to better understand their role by looking at their risk work as a form of institutional work. From an inductive study of hospital risk managers in the Quebec health care sector, we provide a situated account of the risk work or ‘the effortful pattern of practices’ accomplished by hospital risk managers at the intra- and extra-organizational levels. The results show that they engage in two broader recursive forms of institutional work. At the intra-organizational level, it is by building bridges, autonomizing teams, legitimizing risk work, and pragmatizing interventions that hospital risk managers contribute to democratizing the risk management practices in their organization. At the extra-organizational level, it is by networking with colleagues, hybridizing knowledge, shaping identity, and debating solutions that they contribute to articulating a professionalization project. We argue that the recursive relationship between these two forms of institutional work, namely democratizing and professionalizing risk management, demonstrates how the risk work done at one level facilitates the risk work accomplished at the other. The paper provides three contributions. First, it opens the black box of the hospital risk managers’ roles by showing the complexity of their risk work, instead of formalizing expectations about their role in a normative way, as is generally the case. Second, this research provides evidence about how actors with limited collective power and resources such as hospital risk managers participate in disseminating risk management programs and policies. Third, the paper offers a multi-level understanding of the ways by which hospital risk managers work to institutionalize risk management program and policies. The paper ends by discussing the importance of gaining a better understanding of the risk managers’ role and their institutional work.     

Enterprising nonprofits

Faced with rising costs, more competition for fewer donations and grants, and increased rivalry from for-profit companies entering the social sector, nonprofits are turning to the commercial arena to leverage or replace their traditional sources of funding. The drive to become more businesslike, however, holds many dangers for nonprofits. In the best of circumstances, nonprofits face operational and cultural challenges in the pursuit of commercial funding. In the worst, commercial operations can undercut an organization's social mission. To explore the new possibilities of commercialization and to avoid its perils, nonprofit leaders need to craft their strategies carefully. A framework-what the author calls the social enterprise spectrum--can help such leaders understand and assess their options. Nonprofits first must identify potential sources of earned income; then they should set clear and realistic financial objectives. Commercial programs don't need to be profitable to be worthwhile. They can instead improve the efficiency and the effectiveness of organizations by reducing the need for donated funds; by providing a more reliable, diversified funding base; and by enhancing the quality of programs by instilling market discipline. In the end, commercial operations will not--and should not--drive out philanthropic initiatives. But thoughtful innovation in the social sector is essential if organizations are to leverage limited philanthropic resources.     

Privatized Utilities and the 'Third Way'

The Government is planning new regulations to ensure that utility companies 'reflect a sense of social responsibility'. Their intention to overlay social objectives on the regulatory frameworks inspired by free market economics can be seen as an attempt to find a 'Third Way' policy for the utilities. Neoliberals would argue that social policy has no place in the privatized utility sector, which is now well established. Interference in regulatory processes to achieve social objectives is likely to be counter-productive by distorting prices and inhibiting the incentive system designed to achieve efficiencies. Rather than requiring the companies to act as instruments of government policy, the Government could achieve its social objectives through subsidies, or through the social security system, leaving the regulatory framework to operate unfettered.     

Manifestaciones psicosomáticas,compromiso y burnout como consecuentes del clima y la cultura organizacional: un análisis de ruta (path analysis)

The aim of this paper was to study the structural relationship on an path analysis between 13 se-lected variables, explaining a model of occupational health and labor climate: variables of culture (leadership and organizational support), climate (communication and cohesion), burnout (wear emo-tional, depersonalization and dissatisfaction achievement) commitment (affective, normative and continuity) and psychosomatic manifestations (sleep, gastrointestinal and pain). A sample of 1629 subjects of a multinational telecommunications company was used. Two structural models were performed in path analysis using AMOS-IBM version 19, program using the maximum likelihood method, after appropriate testing setting, a path model with 12 significant variables was obtained, eliminating organizational support perceived, a satisfactory reliability was obtained by Cronbach's alfa, the model can be compared and improved in subsequent studies. The burnout explained by route analysis, the importance of a good organizational climate and culture to increase affective commitment, and decrease psychosomatic manifestations. As a model of occupational health, the findings are important for the diagnosis, prevention or intervention in occupational health through studies of organizational climate.     

Guaranteeing Defined Contribution Pensions: The Option to Buy Back a Defined Benefit Promise

After a long commitment to defined benefit (DB) pension plans for U.S. public sector employees, many state legislatures have introduced defined contribution (DC) plans for their public employees. In this process, investment risk that was previously borne by state DB plans has now devolved to employees covered by the new DC plans. In light of this trend, some states have introduced a guarantee mechanism to help protect DC plan participants. One such guarantee takes the form of an option permitting DC plan participants to buy back their DB benefit for a price. This article develops a theoretical framework to analyze the option design and illustrate how employee characteristics influence the option's cost. We illustrate the potential impact of a buy‐back option in a pension reform enacted recently by the State of Florida for its public employees. If employees were to exercise the buy‐back option optimally, the market value of this option could represent up to 100 percent of the DC contributions over their work life.     

A Commissioner's Tale: Avery Hill Student Village, University of Greenwich

Avery Hill was one of the first Private Finance Initiative (PFI) projects in higher education. It illustrates some possible opportunities for the sector to increase its capital investment and demonstrates that commissioning PFI projects involves more than identifying capital costs and transferring risks. It also signifies the benefits of an experience of procurement and a commitment to ride through the peaks and troughs of a tortuous process.     

An investigation of the gains from commitment in monetary policy

We propose a simple framework for analyzing a continuum of monetary policy rules characterized by differing degrees of credibility, in which commitment and discretion become special cases of what we call quasi-commitment. The monetary policy authority is assumed to formulate optimal commitment plans, to be tempted to renege on them, and to succumb to this temptation with a constant exogenous probability known to the private sector. By interpreting this probability as a continuous measure of the (lack of) credibility of the monetary policy authority, we investigate the welfare effect of a marginal increase in credibility. Our main finding is that, in a simple model of the monetary transmission mechanism, most of the gains from commitment accrue at relatively low levels of credibility.     

A model of green bank marketing

In the light of current market conditions, the financial services industry has been reshaped, requiring new marketing knowledge to provide guidelines for successful practice. To that end, corporate social responsibility, green marketing and a green brand image (GBI) have attracted considerable interest in the banking sector, although no framework has yet been established relating these constructs to one another. In this article, the authors present exploratory research as a basis for developing a model of green bank marketing. The model was tested to confirm the dimensions of green bank marketing and investigate its impact on a GBI, thus providing statistical evidence of the relationship between the two variables.     

Understanding public attitudes to technology

The social context which surrounds technology is likely to be one of the most important determinants of its future development and application. The application of repertory grid techniques (n = 26) in conjunction with generalized Procrustes analysis identified important psychological constructs which determine attitude. A larger survey study (n = 227) examined the reliability and predictive capacity of these items in quantifying attitudes to technology. Factor analysis identified two sub-scales, which appeared to assess perceptions of technological risk and benefit. Internal reliability of the two sub-scales was high, and had pleasing face validity and predictive capacity. An inverse relationship between perceived risk and benefit was found, consistent with previous research in risk perception. Discussion is made of reducing inappropriately high risk perceptions through effective communication of benefits, and vice versa, with the caveat that such an effect is only likely to be observed for technologies where public opinion is uncrystallized and knowledge is low.     

Buyer seller relationships in the UK insurance market: Is this the key competitive advantage?

In services marketing much of the recent literature recommends the use of relationship marketing frameworks rather than the extended marketing mix which adds people, process and physical evidence to the traditional four Ps of product, price, promotion and place. In the UK permanent health insurance sector some suppliers sell through intermediaries, making this an ideal environment for testing the value of relationship marketing. Using the Industrial Marketing and Purchasing (IMP) group framework, interviews were conducted with 100 intermediaries. Respondents were asked to rate their top two suppliers against five relationship marketing variables: commercial skills, technical skills, commitment, adaptability and conflict management.The data showed the top supplier was rated more highly than the second supplier in three of the criteria:— commercial skills— technical skills— adaptability.Two of the criteria, commercial skills and technical skills, showed significant differences. The results of this research provide support for the importance of relationship marketing within this sector of the insurance market. For suppliers in the insurance industry, developing competencies in adaptability and conflict management may be the best method both to differentiate the firm and to develop competitive advantage.     

保险企业社会责任探析

随着全球企业社会责任理论研究的持续深入以及社会责任实践活动的不断普及,具有典型社会管理职能的商业保险企业,其社会责任的充分发挥显得日趋迫切。本文对国内外学者关于保险企业社会责任的研究成果进行了初步综述,理清了保险企业社会责任的层次,并在此基础上,归纳出了不同生命周期的保险企业社会责任特征及发展侧重点,有助于推动我国商业保险积极承担企业社会责任,加速保险业的发展。     

Expenditure Incidence in Africa: Microeconomic Evidence

In this paper, we examine the progressivity of social sector expenditures in eight sub‐Saharan African countries. We employ dominance tests, complemented by extended Gini/concentration coefficients, to determine whether health and education expenditures redistribute resources to the poor. We find that social services are poorly targeted. Among the services examined, primary education tends to be most progressive and university education is least progressive. The benefits associated with hospital care are also less progressive than other health facilities. Our results also show that, while concentration curves are a useful way to summarise information on the distributional benefits of government expenditures, statistical testing of differences in curves is important.