Changing institutional logics: shifting to a new service model in the Finnish public sector

ABSTRACT

This paper describes the implementation of corporatized shared services (CSS) in Finnish municipalities and the shift of operating logics. The diffusion of the new logics gradually proceeded to two levels: the individual level and the collective level. At the individual level, identity and cognitive skills were important to the diffusion of the new logics. At the collective level, shared services encouraged managers and employees to share not only practical experiences, but also collective identity.     

From change to progress: critical spirituality and the futures of futures studies

This paper argues that for futures studies (FS) to have a future that is relevant to current shifts in meaning and consciousness, then it must incorporate into its methods and practices a sense of mystery founded on a critically spiritual sensibility. Critical spirituality redefines rationality and empiricism by including within their framework both the somatic and the meditative as valid and necessary components of any research activity. In the short term this means a shift away from the current Western obsession with change and a stepping back to allow for critical distance in order to understand that it is in the appreciation of progress — a fundamental shift in consciousness to include the spiritual dimensions of human experience — that discourse will emerge to take FS to the heart of civilisational renewal. In allowing for mystery, silence and the meditative empiricism required to access these categories, critical spirituality lessens the gap between thought and action and thus enables truly transformative academic practice to emerge.The idea of progress has been central to the unfolding of the modernist project over the previous century. Yet as the century drew to a close it became increasingly hard to keep faith with the idea in the face of growing disillusionment and the obvious failure of modernism to deliver what people most wanted: happiness born of personal fulfillment. A growing range of voices in the critical futures field have been questioning the assumption that change in material terms equates with progress.These voices fall into four main areas.

• Post modernist and post structuralist thinkers;

• Feminists empowering postmodern discourse with value laden analyses of power;

• Post colonial thinkers with a debt to neo-Marxist and critical theorists;

• Neo-humanist thinkers with an investment in all three of the above, who work from a critically spiritual perspective.

In this paper I am going to argue that a Neo-humanist vision of the futures of Futures Studies is one which will fully engage the human potential by activating a critically spiritual methodology. This is important as many of the tools of futures work are actually intended for use in anticipating and managing change (uncritically) but have little relevance when considering the nature of progress. Those methods and techniques which engage with the less analytic more visionary process of futures are much more relevant to progress because they actively involve the individuals in the act of ‘futures building’ as opposed to ‘futures scanning’.‘Progress’ here is used to mean fundamental change in the consciousness of both the individual and collective mind. It is essentially spiritual and has no clear temporal or spacial restrictions being timeless, or as Joanna Macy would have it, anchored in “deep time” [1]. Change, on the other hand, is very much associated with technical and material movement, having no connection with the inner fabric of the human psyche. There is no appreciation of spirit here, though great attention is paid to gross national product and the latest technical innovation to hit the market.Futures Studies has the potential to be responsive to future human dilemmas. But to be so it will need to make the effort to embrace tools and concepts that lie beyond the narrow pall of academic rationality as it is currently constituted. A greater space is already emerging within the field that not only tolerates but promotes imaginative and creative processes that break down the intellectual prudery of those who are attached to their own discipline and have little capacity to envision beyond narrow and self imposed confines. Thus we find music and song, poetry and story, art and theatre effective vehicles for work on deeper forms of consciousness. Visioning and imaging workshops such as those run by Joanna Macy, Elise Boulding, John Seed and Warren Ziegler (to name but a few) are growing in power and sophistication. Meditation and other reflective practices — the spiritual quest — seeking to plumb the depth of the human soul become relevant when seen within a broadened definition of rationality and research.Clearly futurists need to be able to assess and describe likely changes in the short, medium and long term but their central goal should be to facilitate areas of human endeavor which can benefit from a closer linkage between action, the consciousness that informs and directs the action and the spirit that underwrites the consciousness. Equally clear is the fact that not all futures trends are as relevant to this deeper layer of operation within Futures Studies.     

The brain, the mind, and societal and cultural learning: the emergence of a new paradigm of futures research

Research reveals that historical episodes of societal and cultural change have always been mediated by out groups which seek direct experience of reality and the personal transformation it entrains. The strictly rationalist model of cultural change used in Futures Research is out of step with this fact. A new model of cultural change is proposed and its implications for Futures Research discussed. The main implications are: Futures Research should be layered, in the sense that the various levels of mental modality should be made explicit in any piece of research; the dynamics of interaction between these layers needs to be explored: a complete Futures program would combine analysis of the inner lives of humans with scientific and social scientific data.     

Continuity,contingency and context: Bringing the historian's cognitive toolkit into university futures and public policy development

This paper explores the affinities between the cognitive approaches of historical study and those of strategic foresight, specifically, scenario planning, drawing out their capacity to problematise perceived certainties and challenge deterministic beliefs. It suggests that “thinking with history” has the potential to enhance strategic understanding and decision-making. Two high-level decision-making contexts – university executives and Government Departments – are then discussed with regards to the barriers to such strategic thinking. The paper draws on a wider research project exploring the role for historical thinking in public policy development.     

Epistemology, social technology, and expert judgement: Olaf Helmer's contribution to futures research

The article discusses Olaf Helmer's contribution to the development of futures studies by focusing on four basic theses defining his approach. (1) Quasi-laws in social sciences and futures studies can in fact be treated in the same way that the natural laws of the physical sciences. (2) In order to make predictions, one need not appeal to a strict logical derivation, as the “covering laws” doctrine of logical-empiricism suggests. (3) Prediction and explanation are not logically symmetrical as positivists believe, thus the conditions needed for explanation are not those required for prediction. (4) Local, tacit, personal and expert knowledge are crucial in developing a foresight methodology. In conjunction, these four theses open the way to a unique theory of social prediction and to variety of “unorthodox items of methodological equipment for the purposes of prediction in the inexact sciences.”     

Robot futures: science fiction and futures studies methodologies in action

What would constitute a robot identity? Would a robot developing an identity be consciousness of the processes that could/would shape its identity? This essay explores these questions by considering images common to both, futures studies and science fiction—in particular, the now famous anti-capitalist demonstrations in Seattle in November 1999.     

Management accounting texts in New Zealand: the need for a paradigm shift

This paper questions the dominance in textbooks of a management accounting grounded largely in neo-classical economics and scientific management. In New Zealand the most popular textbook used in introductory management accounting courses is Horngren and Foster's Cost Accounting - a Managerial Emphasis.The current seventh edition of the text, although extensively used, is not regarded as adequate for the purpose by many New Zealand educators. The text is seen as being rootd firmly in the traditional understandings of the role of management accounting which are subject to increasing challenge. Other popular texts which are influencing the content of management accounting courses also are reviewed. We conclude that, despite much criticism over many years, modern textbooks have failed to evolve; change is overdue.     

Toward a simulated replica of futures: Classification and possible trajectories of simulation in futures studies

Simulation is likely to become a prominent method of theory development. Futures studies have used simulation in different ways such as evaluating scenarios. Nonetheless, the central attributes of computer simulation such as reductionism-based abstraction, determinism and elimination of stakeholders are the main barriers of successful implementation of simulation in FS. In this paper, we would paint the plausible evolutionary panorama of futures of simulation in futures studies after looking at the role of simulation in FS so far. The possible mechanisms and partnerships required to be applied to grapple the above-mentioned difficulties will be enumerated and investigated. These, in three categories, comprise firstly, human-machine interactions such as quasi-game simulations, and scenario visualization, secondly, large-network simulations including crowd sourcing, and thirdly, simulation platforms for replication of emergence. Ergo, crafting a classification of simulation in futures studies and the possible developments will be the main contribution of this paper. A novel double diamond classification will be presented as well which reflects the past and plausible futures of simulation in futures studies.     

Public and private funding in new urban public transport

Pressures to reduce urban traffic pollution in the UK have not yet resulted in new policies to provide attractive alternatives to the private car. With growing pressure on public sector investment funds, this article considers ways in which the private sector could work in partnership with the public sector to create new light rail systems.     

RBA monetary policy communication: The response of Australian interest rate futures to changes in RBA monetary policy

This paper examines the Australian interest rate futures market reaction to changes in Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) monetary policy. Having determined market expectations from 30-day Interbank futures, the study finds evidence that interest rate futures react strongly to target rate announcements across the maturity spectrum, with a stronger reaction evident in short maturity futures. Further, there is evidence of an asymmetric news effect whereby volatility reacts more strongly to bad news. Disaggregation of the market reaction into target- and path-surprise factors demonstrates that the change in market expectations of future target rates plays a significant role in explaining changes in yield, particularly for bond futures. There is strong evidence that monetary policy statements drive the path-factor, while the December 2007 modification in policy communication has improved the ability of the RBA to influence market expectations.     

Values in futures studies and long-term planning: Two Swedish case studies

The past few years' debate on the devolution of decision making in Swedish urban communities has increased the importance of examining values among planners and the eventual subjects of the plans. This article presents two case studies which show that the discrepancy in values not only complicates the planning process but also raises the need for further research in developing new techniques in delineating individual values.     

Spill over effects of futures contracts initiation on the cash market: a regime shift approach

This paper investigates possible spillover effects on the spot market due to the initiation of derivatives markets. Although speculation, which is apparent because of the low transaction cost of derivatives markets, produces noise in the financial system, the speculative forces and the rational hedging strategies jointly contribute to the price discovery process. Furthermore, the demand and supply forces are responsible for the financial system equilibrium and high volatility regimes imply high rates for the accumulation of new information. According to many analysts, there still exists a puzzle regarding the stabilization or destabilization effect of Futures contracts’ onset, which is both country and model specific. For that reason, this paper examines empirically the case of three European countries by the application not only of conventional structural break analysis, but also of regime shift analysis in order to account for the timing of possible spillover effects, and hence, to overcome the conflicting results of the extant literature. Furthermore, the proposed econometric methodology considers some stylized financial facts such as the leverage effect, the time varying risk premium, the decomposition of the day of the week effect, the leptokurtosis and the skewness of the returns’ distributions. For the purposes of our analysis we use data from the UK, Spain and Greek capital markets and according to the empirical findings, there exists a significant stabilization effect, which is negatively associated with the level of efficiency and completeness of the capital markets examined. However, in some cases there exists a short run destabilization effect for 1 or 2 months.     

City futures in transformation: Emerging issues and case studies

This article discusses: 1. The recent/increasing prominence of cities as agents of global change; 2. Emerging issues that are likely to influence the direction of city futures in novel ways; 3. The theory and practise of city futures projects; and 4. Case studies of cities engaged in foresight projects.     

Monetary policy and financial stability: What role for the futures market?

This paper examines interactions between monetary policy and financial stability. There is a general view that central banks smooth interest rate changes to enhance the stability of financial markets. But might this induce a moral hazard problem, and induce financial institutions to maintain riskier portfolios, the presence of which would further inhibit active monetary policy? Hedging activities of financial institutions, such as the use of interest rate futures and swap markets to reduce risk, should further protect markets against consequences of unforeseen interest rate changes. Thus, smoothing may be both unnecessary and undesirable. The paper shows by a theoretical argument that smoothing interest rates may lead to indeterminacy of the economy's rational expectations equilibrium. Nevertheless, our empirical analysis supports the view that the Federal Reserve smoothes interest rates and reacts to interest rate futures. We add new evidence on the importance for policy of alternative indicators of financial markets stress.     

Initial margin policy and stochastic volatility in the crude oil futures market

This article examines the relationship between the volatilityof the crude oil futures market and changes in initial marginrequirements. To closely match changes in futures market volatilitywith the corresponding changes in margin requirements, we inferthe volatility of the futures market from the prices of crudeoil futures options contracts. Using a mean-reverting diffusionprocess for volatility, we show that changes in margin policydo not affect subsequent market volatility.