Public–private partnerships in Social Impact Bonds: facilitating competition or hindering transparency?

ABSTRACT

The use of Social Impact Bonds (SIBs), which introduces the potential for investor profit in public service provision, has been widely discussed. Some argue that SIBs might promote government transparency because outcome data collection and evaluation are part of contractual terms. On the other hand, some argue that SIBs might hinder government transparency because more contractual parties might lead to more uncertain data ownership and because the profit motive transforms information into a competitive advantage. This paper looks at SIBs in five countries, examining how transparency differed between SIB and non-SIB financed programmes at the same social service provider. On the positive side, SIBs led to more and longer collection of outcome data and the publication of evaluations. On the negative side, it was found that SIBs tend to generate significant obstacles to the release of data to academic researchers and that sponsored evaluations do not measure impacts.     

The evolution of inter-organisational social capital with foreign customers: Its direct and interactive effects on SMEs’ foreign performance

Taking a longitudinal approach, we analyze how the evolution of different dimensions of social capital between an SME (Small and Medium enterprise) and its key foreign customers directly influences the firm’s foreign performance growth. Moreover, we utilize a contingency approach by introducing two dyad-specific characteristics into the analysis: psychic and geographic interorganizational distances. Our findings contribute to the international business literature on social capital and suggest that while an investment in social capital with distant foreign customers always reinforces SMEs’ foreign performance development, relational and cognitive social capital have the same positive effects only for low levels of interorganizational psychic distance.     

Residents’ support for red tourism in China: The moderating effect of central government

This study proposes and tests a model that incorporates two competing theories of political trust, institutional trust and cultural trust, to examine community support for “red tourism” development. Using data gathered from residents living in close proximity to Jinggangshan Scenic Area in China, this study examines the influence of authoritarian values, particularly as they relate to level of residents’ power, their level of trust in government, and their effects on support for “red tourism.” Findings suggest that trust in central government moderates the relationship between trust in local government and support. Future studies should utilize the institutional trust framework to assess residents’ trust in the local government and the cultural trust framework to assess trust in the central government.     

Unraveling public support for casino gaming: The case of a casino referendum in Penghu

By integrating the social exchange theory (SET) and the theory of planned behavior (TPB), this study unravels the factors associated with residents’ intention to support casino gaming development in Penghu in future referenda. Residents’ attitudes toward casino gaming development in their community were examined in the SET framework while their intention to support such development was investigated in the TPB framework. Despite that partisan difference did not have a significant interaction with TPB variables, past behavior exerted moderating effects determining residents’ intention to support casino gaming development through two TPB variables: subjective norm and perceived behavioral control. Implications are provided.

Abbreviations: ATTU: attitude; DPP: Democratic Progress Party; ECOI: perceived economic impact; ENVI: perceived environmental impact; INT: intention to support casino gaming development in future referenda; KMT: Kuomingtang; PBC: perceived behavioral control; PPB: perceived personal benefit; SET: social exchange theory; SN: subjective norms; SOCI: perceived social impact; TPB: theory of planned behavior     

Social media affordances: Enabling customer engagement

Despite the acknowledged importance of social media for customer engagement, our understanding of this phenomenon is limited and new theories can help shed further light on the unique features of social media in the tourism context. Our work contributes to the literature by adopting an affordance perspective that leads us to identify three distinctive social media affordances for customer engagement in tourism: persistent engagement, customized engagement, and triggered engagement. Our work also extends prior research on customer engagement by examining the process of recognition (proprioception, exteroception and coperception) through which organizations engage customers in social media.     

The determinants of tax morale in Pakistan

This paper examines the determinants of tax morale in Pakistan, a country that has struggled with low tax effort over the past decade. We exploit novel data for individual taxpayers collected in 2014 by Pakistan’s Federal Board of Revenue to estimate a binary probit regression model. Our results are generally in line with the findings of the modern empirical literature on tax morale in other countries. Overall, groups with lower labor force participation show more positive attitudes toward tax compliance. Educated respondents exhibit higher tax morale than the illiterate, but only for those with very low or very high educational attainment is tax morale higher than for those with bachelor’s degrees. Tax morale is highest in major industrialized population centers that serve as seats of government. Females show generally higher tax morale than males, however, their attitudes tend to worsen with age to such an extent that elderly females have lower tax morale than elderly males. Our findings on gender suggest potential gains from increasing female labor force participation rates. More generally, addressing the current failures of tax administration and dealing with horizontal inequity arising from administrative weaknesses may contribute materially to improving voluntary compliance.     

How virtual brand community traces may increase fan engagement in brand pages

Brand pages in social media are a great way to foster consumer gathering around a brand, but it can be challenging to keep fans engaged and coming back to see updated content. Brands with millions of fans on Facebook have seen organic reach fall below 2% of their base. In this article, we describe how the creation of virtual brand communities can help brand managers increase fan engagement. We suggest the steps, conditions, advantages, and limitations involved in nurturing a brand page as an online social gathering that assumes some of the characteristics of a virtual brand community. The results of our study show that a brand page can have some of the characteristics of a virtual brand community—topical information exchange, identity communication, and establishment and internalization of cultural norms. We also show the importance of having celebrities among fans in order to foster social interactions and legitimate social practices on brand pages.     

Cultural resources and public trust shape attitudes toward climate change and preferred futures—A case study among the Norwegian public

Since climate change mitigation likely will affect most sectors of society, adapting to climate change essentially requires the public to envision and adjust to alternative futures. There is a need for more studies on the social basis for climate change asking why people hold the attitudes they do, rather than the dominant tendency to ask how to change attitudes and behavior. Research in different fields show that fundamental life values and worldviews are shaped through life and heavily influenced by early life socialization and culture, which in turn can shape attitudes toward specific phenomena like climate change. We surveyed a representative sample of the Norwegian public and examined how cultural resources and trust in environmental governance institutions are related to attitudes toward climate change. High levels of trust are associated with a tendency to perceive climate change as human caused, and low levels of trust correspond with stronger beliefs that climate change are natural phenomena. High levels of cultural resources are found among climate change deniers as well as believers, indicating that groups with different political, professional and intellectual orientations, as well as life histories, may not trust climate change science. We argue that improved knowledge about the social basis for climate change is an imperative part of futures-oriented expertise.     

行为经济学视角下的社会保障理论演进

社会保障系统通过社会与个体的风险共担，增进了个人、家庭和社会的福利水平，对就业、消费、投资均有显著影响。过去社会保障理论侧重信息约束和跨期决策下的机制设计，通过政府干预来实现有效的风险和成本共担，进而有效化解社会成员所面临的各种风险。但这些干预机制有可能会对就业等产生负面影响。近年来，行为与实验经济学开始进入社会保障理论的研究，新的理论试图从理性约束视角来理解社会保障系统的性质及其影响，并提出了全新的助推机制的设计理念与思路。迄今的研究发现，干预机制和助推机制各有千秋，通过合理的互补与替代，能够更好地实现社会保障系统的有效运行。     

Social housing in France: A permanent and multifaceted challenge for public policies

This paper examines the dynamics of the overwhelmingly generous social housing in France that covers a wide spectrum of recipients. Being influenced by electoral power of rotating ruling parties and social ideals, policy formulations are often reflected by idealistic politics which tends to over-stretch the nation’s budget and restrict its scope in reaching its target groups. From the 1990s, fund availability has been further hit by economic globalization causing falling business profitability and high unemployment rates affecting notably ethnic minorities. Upcoming social crisis has been met with public response via a series of technical-led remedial acts to promote social integration in housing and by identifying social ills and polarization in sensitive and problematic urban quarters. New technical and financial measures in coping with the complexity and magnitude of social housing are expected to remain highly challenging in the French parliamentary politics.