Ethnography,Reality, and Truth: The Vital Need for Studies of ‘How Things Work’ in Organizations and Management

There is considerable potential for ethnography to play a larger and more mainstream role in organization and management studies. Ethnography is not a research method. It is a way of writing about and analysing social life which has roots in both the sciences and the humanities. Whilst it prioritizes close and intensive observation in the gathering of information and insights, it may additionally and potentially use any of the full range of other research methods. A powerful rationale for ‘good’ ethnographic work is offered by Pragmatist Realist principles of truth, reality, and relevance‐to‐practice. Research based on these principles investigates the realities of ‘how things work’ in organizations. In doing this, it rigorously grounds and contextualizes the activities which the researcher observes and the accounts which they receive from organizational members. To do this well, researchers must avoid being diverted from the analysis of organizational patterns and managerial processes by researchers trying to ‘get into the heads’ of organizational members in order to capture their subjective experiences. Various moves can be identified which would encourage and enable more people to work ethnographically and to produce research which is inherently critical and is unfettered by attachment to any narrow specialist method, concept or ‘perspective’.     

Why SMEs invest in environmental measures: sustainability evidence from small and medium‐sized printing firms

Why do SMEs invest in environmental measures? From the literature we know that most SMEs are rather slow in adopting these sustainable measures, but then the following question arises: why are other SMEs fast in this respect? From our research, it becomes clear that improving the working conditions is the most important reason why these fast‐going SMEs invest in environmental measures, as this probably improves their employees' motivation and performance. This explanation connects ‘planet’ and ‘people’ with each other, and does not exclude ‘profit’, which completes the traditional sustainability circle. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.     

Rivalry information acquisition and disclosure

In the recent past, there have been numerous scandals around poor product qualities in various industries. Although it can be easily rationalized why bad practices have not been reported by the inflictors themselves, it is more difficult to understand why the non‐inflicting competitors did not report their rivals' acts. In this paper, we study these competitors' incentives to acquire and to disclose information on the quality of their rivals' products and question when we can leave the information disclosure process to the competitive pressure of markets and when there is a need for governmental intervention. We find that low quality levels can be disclosed in markets that exhibit negative spill‐over effects, but should not be expected to be disclosed in markets that exhibit a positive spill‐over effect. A regulatory policy on quality testing and disclosure may be more effective in the latter type of market.     

Academic entrepreneurship

This paper proposes a model of the choice to commercialize research, of the amount and type of pre‐commercial research to perform, and of the timing of commercialization by an academic scientist, and analyzes the returns and costs of these choices. The behavior and performance of the academic scientist is compared with that of an industrial researcher. Unlike the industrial researcher, the academic scientist receives direct benefit from performing research, e.g. in the form of publication and peer recognition. However, the type of research that is more effective in reducing commercialization costs may not be the one generating the highest scientific benefit. It is shown that, while in some cases the academic scientist is more reluctant to commercialize research, in other cases she may commercialize faster than a solely profit‐seeking agent would—and perform less research. Academic and non‐academic scientists also select different projects, and this may explain the good performance of academic entrepreneurs found in several empirical studies. The model offers a unified framework to interpret the mixed evidence on the success of, and the arguments in favor and against, the involvement of universities into commercial activities. Managerial and public policy implications are also examined. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Ecosocialization or Countermodernization? Reviewing the Shifting ‘Storylines’ of Transport Planning

In recent decades, in most western countries, conventional transport planning has encountered growing social opposition from environmentalists and increasing scientific criticism on the grounds of its unsustainability. In some places, including the United Kingdom, the assumptions, beliefs and values (‘storylines’) about transport have shifted to some degree away from the car in favour of public and slow forms of transport. The article elaborates a concept of ‘ecosocialization’ to describe and explain the various reform pressures that have sought to reorient transport planning away from car‐dominated approaches. We use this concept in preference to the more familiar one of ‘ecological modernization’ in order to foreground the influence of embedded value systems and habits, as well as institutions and rules, on key pathways of social development. Whilst these reformist pressures and their consequences have been evident for decades, it is also apparent that in other contexts, after moments of subordination to alternative policy settings, conventional car‐dominated transport planning has reasserted its pre‐eminence. Our article explores the shifting discourses and practices of transport planning in three national policy settings, charting the contest between critiques of car‐dominated approaches and those ‘countermodernizing’ forces, especially road building institutions, that have resisted this ‘ecosocialization’.     

Policy Mobilities and Interdisciplinary Engagement

This essay explores the nature and potential of interdisciplinarity in the expanding body of research on the circulation of policies between places. It focuses on the policy mobilities literature, highlighting its geographical underpinnings as well as its links to, and divergences from, literature beyond geography, in particular the political science‐led work on policy transfer. Acknowledging the potential downfalls of interdisciplinarity, it calls for increased conversations and co‐working between geographers, political scientists and other social scientists to explore the topic further.     

Good Analytical Research

The purpose of this commentary is to address the issues raised by Ohlson from the point of view of analytical accounting research. The aim is not only to provide some input to young researchers who are going to publish good research using analytical methods, but also to give some hints to help users of analytical accounting research to understand and interpret the findings of this type of research. Ohlson has taken on a task of identifying a set of critical factors which are likely to lead to successful research. Good research is defined as research that makes an impression. Thus, it is not enough to get the research published – not even in a premier journal. The research should have an impact, the community should learn something. As Ohlson notes, there is enough ‘ordinary’ research. In my view this is the right attitude. Short-term optimization is also widespread in the research community and that is not what we should strive for. With the objective in place, I will continue to analyze the question in relation to analytical research. I start out discussing the aim of analytical research by providing a few examples of good models. The first is the Feltham-Ohlson model and the second is the agency model. Both are simple and elegant models dealing with difficult issues. The analysis proceeds to characterize good models. A good model is a simple model that zooms in on the problem under scrutiny. It is a ‘minimal’ model that contains the problem and nothing outside the problem. I then proceed to characterize good research in an analytical framework. This is research that tackles a problem that is of interest to the users and the researcher. In this process I also identify current notable analytical research. Finally, I contrast this to the recommendations of Ohlson.     

‘Arriving At’ Urban Policies: The Topological Spaces of Urban Policy Mobility

Spatial vocabularies are stretched to their limits by the complexities of policy mobilities. Using the example of city‐wide strategic policymaking in Johannesburg, this essay argues for an enrichment of our vocabularies for appreciating how wider circuits of urban policy shape localized policy outcomes. Rather than tracing policies until they arrive somewhere, a more nuanced spatiality of policy mobility emerges when considering how policies are 'arrived at'. Thus policy influences can, for example, be ephemeral and recursive, international but already present in localities, have many simultaneous origins, and be folded into a relatively amorphous but specific policy blend. Drawing on John Allen's account of topological space, the essay indicates how both a more subtle spatiality and a more open politics of policy formation would emerge from turning the analysis of policy mobilities on its head in this way.     

Why gender and ‘difference’ matters: a critical appraisal of industrial relations research

Through a critical rereading of key UK workplace case studies this article explores why gender analysis matters to studies of people at work. We argue that the field of industrial relations could benefit from a greater engagement with feminist‐influenced methodologies. In particular, we analyse three methodological approaches that can assist in understanding the lives of workers; a framework that recognises intersectionality; an account that accommodates both material and cultural explanations; and a research process that is reflexive and recognises positionality. These are identified as intrinsic to a gender‐sensitive analysis, and through a comparison of key texts it is possible to highlight why their absence leads to much research in this field remaining ‘gender blind’.     

Neoliberal Urbanism Redux?

Neoliberalization processes have been reshaping the landscapes of urban development for more than three decades, but their forms and consequences continue to evolve through an eclectic blend of failure and crisis, regulatory experimentation, and policy transfer across places, territories and scales. The proliferation of familiar neoliberal discourses and policy formulations in the aftermath of the 2007‐09 world financial crisis masks evidence of more deeply rooted transformations of policies, institutions and spaces that continue to combatively remake terrains of urban development. Accordingly, the critical intellectual project of deciphering the problematic of neoliberal urbanism must continue to evolve. This essay outlines some of the methodological and political challenges associated with (re)constructing a ′moving map′ of post‐crisis neoliberalization processes. We affirm a form of critical urban theory that adopts a restlessly antagonistic stance towards orthodox urban formations and their dominant ideologies, institutional arrangements and societal effects, tracking their endemic policy failures and crisis tendencies while at the same time demarcating potential terrains for heterodox, radical and/or insurgent theories and practices of emancipatory social change.     

JUSTIFYING A POLICY MIX FOR POLLUTION CONTROL: A REVIEW OF ECONOMIC LITERATURE

Abstract This paper provides a review of economic studies analysing the use of multiple policies – a so‐called policy mix – to cope with single pollution problems. To guide and structure the review, an analytical framework is developed and applied. The framework integrates transaction costs into the analysis of pollution problems and policies to overcome them. Moreover, it understands a pollution externality not only as a market failure but more generally as the failure of private governance structures. Based on this insight, two rationales for using a policy mix are identified. First, a policy mix may help to correct for multiple reinforcing failures of private governance structures, such as pollution externalities and technological spillovers. Second, a policy mix can be employed if the implementation of single first‐best policies brings about high transaction costs, e.g. when marginal pollution damages are heterogeneous or polluters are unlikely to comply with the policy. For each rationale, the relevant literature is presented. Based on the review, avenues for future research are identified.     

Corporate Carbon and Financial Performance: The Role of Emission Reductions

This article uses econometric techniques to examine the effect of corporate carbon performance on corporate financial performance. I extend the existing literature in this research field by differentiating between two measurement perspectives: carbon performance expressed as annually reported carbon dioxide (CO₂) emission equivalents and improvements in carbon performance over time. Thereby, the article re‐addresses the research question ‘when and how does it pay to be green?’ in the context of carbon emissions and climate change mitigation. Using a nonlinear modeling technique, the findings indicate that it pays to be green for companies with superior carbon performance but not for companies with inferior carbon performance. The results also show that carbon emission mitigation is linearly and significantly positive related to return on sales (ROS) but negatively related to Tobin's q . These contradictory findings help us to understand why – in spite of growing regulatory pressure – companies have been slow to respond with effective action to tackle climate change beyond marginal efficiency improvements that correspond to ‘low‐hanging fruits’. The empirical analysis is based on an unbalanced sample of 7625 firm‐year observations covering carbon emission data (Scope 1 and Scope 2) for 1640 international firms from 2003 to 2015. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment     

Hip‐Hop as Urban and Regional Research: Encountering an Insider's Ethnography of City Life

This essay suggests that hip‐hop music may reasonably be thought of as a form of urban and regional research. The essay draws upon a recently published book by hip‐hop artist Jay‐Z, which provides biographical information alongside translations of the lyrical content of his works, to show that hip‐hop is full of insider ethnographic insights into urban life. This, it is argued, can be thought of as an answer to Daryl Martin's call for a more ‘poetic urbanism’, an urbanism that captures the material, sensory and emotional aspects of the city. The essay uses Jay‐Z's text to illustrate the type of insights and ideas that we might obtain from hip‐hop, giving some specific examples of these insights and concluding with some reflections upon this alternative insider account of city life — and how it might provide us with opportunities for expanding our repertoire.     

INNOVATION,COMPETITION AND ANTITRUST: AN EXAMINATION OF THE INTEL CASE

Microprocessor‐maker Intel has been subjected to the highest fine in the history of EU competition policy. Intel operates in a market with one other main supplier, a fact that seemed to provide grounds to those accusing it of abusing a dominant position. The authors argue that, in spite of the limited number of players, the microprocessor market showed the distinctive marks of dynamic competition: ever‐lower prices and ever‐growing innovation. Political considerations more than sound economic reasoning seem to be behind the EU antitrust decision.     

Re‐reading Castells: Indifference or Irrelevance Twenty Years On?

This essay considers the relevance of The City and the Grassroots to contemporary debates within critical urban analysis. It argues that the book addresses many of the same empirical topics as more recent scholarship, but that shifts in the kinds of questions asked about those topics may make the book seem less relevant to contemporary debates. In particular, Castells’ attempt to abstract from local experience to understand the process of political and social change in something specifically ‘urban’ may be at odds with the goals of contemporary research and of researchers outside Europe, many of whom attempt to provide a differentiated analysis attuned to context and the positionality of agents within social movements. So, while the book makes important contributions to theoretical and empirical arguments because of its deep and rich comparative analysis, intellectual debates and approaches over the past 20 years may have shifted focus.     

When Does University Research Get Commercialized? Creating Ambidexterity in Research Institutions

We examine the tensions that make it difficult for a research‐oriented university to achieve commercial outcomes. Building on the organizational ambidexterity literature, we specify the nature of the tensions (between academic and commercially‐oriented activities) at both organizational and individual levels of analysis, and how these can be resolved. We develop hypotheses linking specific aspects of the organization and the individual researcher to the likelihood of their research projects generating commercial outcomes, and we test them using a novel dataset of 207 Research Council‐funded projects, combining objective data on project outcomes with the perceptions of principal investigators. We show that the tension between academic and commercial demands is more salient at the level of the individual researcher than at the level of the organization. Universities show evidence that they are able to manage the tensions between academic and commercial demands, through for example their creation of ‘dual structures’. At the individual level, on the other hand, the tensions are more acute, so that the people who deliver commercial outcomes tend to be rather different to those who are accustomed to producing academic outcomes.     

REINVENTING FOREIGN AID FOR INCLUSIVE AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT: KUZNETS,PIKETTY AND THE GREAT POLICY REVERSAL

This survey essay reviews close to 200 papers in arguing that in order to achieve sustainable and inclusive development, foreign aid should not orient developing countries toward industrialization in the perspective of Kuznets but in the view of Piketty. Abandoning the former's view that inequality will fall with progress in industrialization and placing more emphasis on inequality in foreign aid policy will lead to more sustainable development outcomes. Inter alia: mitigate short‐term poverty, address concerns of burgeoning population growth, train recipient governments on inclusive development, fight corruption and mismanagement and avoid the shortfalls of celebrated Kuznets’ conjectures. We discuss how the essay addresses post‐2015 development challenges and provide foreign aid policy instruments with which discussed objectives can be achieved. In summary, the essay provides useful policy measures to avoid past pitfalls. ‘Output may be growing, and yet the mass of the people may be becoming poorer’ (Lewis). ‘Lewis led all developing countries to water, proverbially speaking, some African countries have so far chosen not to drink’ (Amavilah). Piketty has led all developing countries to the stream again and a challenging policy syndrome of our time is how foreign aid can help them to drink.     

Food Deserts and Real‐Estate‐Led Social Policy

Since the early 2000s in the United States, food deserts—neighborhoods in which households have limited geographic access to full‐service supermarkets or grocery stores— have become conceptually central in public policy research on food security. Analyzing this phenomenon from a ‘policy mobility’ perspective, this article traces the food desert's emergence in policy discourse, locating it within an entrepreneurial social policy paradigm that privileges real estate development over direct economic relief. In the context of property‐led anti‐poverty efforts, the identification and mapping of food deserts catalyzes a logic that leads to subsidy to grocery store development in low‐income areas (or ‘fresh food financing’), while at the same time officials are cutting programs such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (food stamps), which directly supplements household food budgets. The article contributes to widening critical discussion of the food desert paradigm and the policy interventions with which it is associated. It calls on urban researchers and practitioners to reframe discussions of food access and nutrition around the shortage of basic income and a need for higher wage floors.     

Beyond Gentrification: Hegemonic Redevelopment in Hong Kong

Like other concepts, gentrification must be situated in the socio‐historical context in which it was produced. Since its coinage the concept has travelled widely, yet it has been applied unevenly, and in some cases uncritically, in various locations now including Asian cities. This essay challenges the application of the concept of gentrification to Hong Kong, as attempted by an article previously published in this journal. It responds through two main lines of inquiry. First, it demonstrates how the absence of historical, geographical and socio‐political context weakens the basis for a critical urban geography. Second, in constructing a historical baseline, this essay proposes to conceive urban redevelopment through hegemony‐cum‐alienation, which is a more complicated process than displacement of the working class. Alienated hegemonic redevelopment perpetuates systemic reproduction and associated power politics, yet with the primary source of contradiction residing in landed and property relations. Conclusions suggest the urgency of developing new approaches instead of relying on more empirical studies as evidence for an already over‐developed concept. Analysis of the Hong Kong case suggests how the spent concept of gentrification could be superseded by alternatives.     

THE ROLE OF FEES IN PATENT SYSTEMS: THEORY AND EVIDENCE

This paper reviews the economic literature on the role of fees in patent systems. Two main research questions are usually addressed: the impact of patent fees on the behavior of applicants and the question of optimal fees. Studies in the former group confirm that a range of fees affect the behavior of applicants and suggest that a patent is an inelastic good. Studies in the latter group provide grounds for both low and high application (or pre‐grant) fees and renewal (or post‐grant) fees, depending on the structural context and policy objectives. The paper also presents new stylized facts on patent fees of 30 patent offices worldwide. It is shown that application fees are generally lower than renewal fees, and renewal fees increase more than proportionally with patent age.