Exploring supportive and developmental career management through business strategies and coaching

The shift toward individualistic career management requires a supportive and developmental career approach. Using coaching practices as a manifestation of such an approach, this study reports on coaching and other career practices that are part of supportive and developmental career management in a Belgium sample (n = 154). Three other types of career management were identified as well. Supportive and developmental career management was most present in organizations that had a past or current prospector strategy, and was the least present in past or current defenders. The type of business strategy organizations indicated to pursue in the future did not have an influence on the type of career management they currently had. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Networks in Public Administration: Current scholarship in review

Abstract

Network-focused research in public administration has expanded rapidly over the past two decades. This rapid growth has created come confusion about terminology and approaches to research in the field. We organize the network literature in public administration using compact citation networks to identify coherent subdomains focused on (1) policy formation, (2) governance and (3) policy implementation. We trace how these domains differ in their approach to defining the role of networks, relationships and actors and to what extent the articles apply formal network analysis techniques. Based on a subsequent content analysis of the sample articles, we identify promising research avenues focused on the wider adoption of methods derived from social network analysis and the conditions under which networks actually deliver improved results.     

Identification and Trust in Public Organizations: A communicative approach

Abstract

Little empirical research has examined the link between organizational identification and organizational trust. Identification presupposes a level of consistency in its object, and this study proposes that trust can reduce uncertainty between organization and employee, enabling a bond between the two to form. Secondly, this research looks at how interaction with various organizational groups may affect organizational trust, thereby indirectly encouraging identification. It is thus proposed that organizational trust should be understood as an important mechanism mediating the relationship between interaction with employees at different levels of the organizational hierarchy and identification with the organization as a whole.     

Collusive Bidding: Lessons from the FCC Spectrum Auctions

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) spectrum auctions use a simultaneous ascending auction design. Bidders bid on numerous communication licenses simultaneously, with bidding remaining open on all licenses until no bidder is willing to bid higher on any license. With full revelation of bidding information, simultaneous open bidding allows bidders to send messages to their rivals, telling them on which licenses to bid and which to avoid. These strategies can help bidders coordinate a division of the licenses, and enforce the proposed division by directed punishments. We examine solutions to mitigate collusive bidding in the spectrum auctions, and then apply these ideas to the design of daily electricity auctions.     

THE EFFECT OF MARIJUANA DISPENSARY OPENINGS ON HOUSING PRICES

We evaluate the effect of medical and recreational dispensary openings on housing prices in Denver, Colorado. Using an event study approach, we find that the introduction of a new dispensary within a half‐mile radius of a new home increases home prices by approximately 7.7% on average. The effect diminishes for homes further from new dispensaries but is consistent over time. Our results provide important and timely empirical evidence on the socioeconomic impacts of marijuana legalization. (JEL R32, R38, R5)     

Robots and us: towards an economics of the ‘Good Life’

(Expected) adverse effects of the ‘ICT Revolution’ on work and opportunities for individuals to use and develop their capacities give a new impetus to the debate on the societal implications of technology and raise questions regarding the ‘responsibility’ of research and innovation (RRI) and the possibility of achieving ‘inclusive and sustainable society’. However, missing in this debate is an examination of a possible conflict between the quest for ‘inclusive and sustainable society’ and conventional economic principles guiding capital allocation (including the funding of research and innovation). We propose that such conflict can be resolved by re-examining the nature and purpose of capital, and by recognising mainstream economics’ utilitarian foundations as an unduly restrictive subset of a wider Aristotelian understanding of choice.     

Critical accounting and communicative action: On the limits of consensual deliberation

Richard Laughlin's work provides a framework for scholarly engagement that includes process (middle range thinking), a societal model of administration, and a means for reflexive and collective decision-making. The framework draws on Habermas’ theory of communicative action, which is underpinned by a deliberative, consensus-oriented conceptualization of democracy. Based on recent developments in political theory and related applied fields, we argue that deliberative democracy is only one of several democratic bases useful in understanding and/or improving accounting and accountability systems to better meet the needs of diverse contemporary societies. In particular, we contend that, in relying on Habermasian-style deliberative democracy, Laughlin's conceptualizations do not fully account for the dimensions of disagreement and difference in democratic interactions. Drawing on the work of agonistic political theorists and studies from the applied fields of communicative planning and critical policy analysis, we argue that deliberative democracy approaches based on ideal speech criteria and universalistic consensus need to be balanced with theorizations that recognize the reality and value of more open-ended and unfinalizable struggles among actors with different histories, cultures, and/or ideological orientations. While cognizant of the challenges involved in bridging deliberative-agonistic conceptualizations of democracy, such endeavors provide opportunities for (re)theorizations that offer promise for enriching critical accounting by, as we argue, reinforcing the critical/political in critical accounting. To this end, we consider possibilities of forging links between Laughlin's work and our own proposals for dialogic/polylogic accountings based on agonistic democracy in an effort to foster more enabling accounting praxis.     

Spatial allocation and the shadow pricing of product characteristics

The paper considers an industry transforming primary commodities (farm products) into processed commodities (food products). It focuses on the allocation of embedded characteristics (carbohydrate, protein, etc.) both across space and among commodities. The approach generates a spatial competitive market equilibrium of production, consumption, transformation, and trade for both primary and processed commodities, along with the spatial distribution of shadow prices for the product characteristics. The model provides a basis for analyzing the allocation and pricing of agricultural products, food products, and characteristics in spatial markets. The empirical usefulness of the model is illustrated in the context of regional resource allocation in the U.S. dairy sector.