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Governance Challenges (governance + challenge)

Distribution by Scientific Domains

Business, Economics, Finance and Accounting	55%
Humanities and Social Sciences	44%

Selected Abstracts

THE GOVERNANCE CHALLENGES OF SOCIAL ENTERPRISES: EVIDENCE FROM A UK EMPIRICAL STUDY

ANNALS OF PUBLIC AND COOPERATIVE ECONOMICS, Issue 2 2009
Roger Spear
ABSTRACT:,The social enterprise sector in the UK is going through a period of rapid growth, and is being seen by government as another important vehicle for delivering public services. As a result the issue of public trust in social enterprise is of growing importance. While there is a growing literature on the governance of voluntary and non-profit organizations, with some exceptions (e.g. co-operatives) there has been little research on the governance challenges and support needs of social enterprises. The research reported here aimed to help fill that gap. Based on interviews and focus groups with governance advisers, board members and chief executives it explores the typical governance challenges faced by social enterprises. Based on the research the paper develops a new, empirically-grounded typology of social enterprises based on their origins and development path, and presents findings about some of the governance challenges that are common across the sector and some that are more distinctive to the different types of social enterprise. [source]

Governance challenges and the prevention of industrial environmental accidents: the case of finland

ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY AND GOVERNANCE, Issue 6 2008
Nina Wessberg
Abstract This paper examines the challenges faced in governing accidental industrial emissions. Accidental emissions are unexpected situations where harmful runaway emissions are released into the environment, causing damage to people, ecosystems, human property and company images. We claim that in Finland the practices of environmental authorities do not encourage companies to prevent accidental emissions in the most effective way. According to our study, based on action research and case study augmented with document analysis and interviews, authorities operate under three different kinds of frame: an environmental permit frame, a risk prevention frame and a major accident prevention frame. Accidental industrial emissions are, in our view, best governed under the risk prevention frame, where practices and management systems are addressed covering the entire complex socio-technical nature of an industrial process. However, environmental authorities, in Finland, focus on environmental permit frames, stressing limit values, hence concentrating on managing the industrial process component by component. This approach may be suitable for the governing of continuous emissions, but not that of accidental emissions. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment. [source]

Sustainable development and the ,governance challenge': the French experience with Natura 2000

ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY AND GOVERNANCE, Issue 3 2008
Darren McCauley
Abstract Sustainable development is conceptualized in this paper as a serious challenge for governance structures and processes in nation states. Global and European agreements have placed the inclusion of civil society actors in policy-making at the heart of the sustainability agenda. This commitment is particularly evident in the Commission's White Paper on Governance and the EU Sustainable Development Strategy. From this perspective, the European Commission has consistently underlined the integral role of dialogue with social partners in any sustainability agenda. In contrast, there is a clear mismatch between these principles of civil society inclusion and policy-making in France. Long-standing traditions of meso-corporatism have struggled to adapt to extending participation to civil society actors. This paper assesses the implementation of sustainable development as civil society inclusion with reference to the French experience in dealing with EU biodiversity policy. It is argued that this governance challenge has effectively presented nation states with an ,interpretation dilemma' with regards to sustainable development. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment. [source]

Conservation Geographies in Sub-Saharan Africa: The Politics of National Parks, Community Conservation and Peace Parks

GEOGRAPHY COMPASS (ELECTRONIC), Issue 1 2010
Brian King
Sub-Saharan Africa has been the location of intense conservation planning since the colonial era. Under the auspices of wilderness protection, colonial authorities established national parks largely for the purpose of hunting and tourism while forcibly evicting indigenous populations. Concerns about the ethical and economic impacts of protected areas have generated interest in community conservation initiatives that attempt to include local participation in natural resource management. In recent years, the anticipated loss of biodiversity, coupled with the integration of ecological concepts into planning processes, has generated interest in larger-scale initiatives that maximize protected habitat. Central to this shift are transboundary conservation areas, or Peace Parks, that involve protected territory that supersedes national political borders. This study provides a review of national parks, community conservation, and Peace Parks, in order to understand the development politics and governance challenges of global conservation. Although these approaches are not mutually exclusive, the study asserts that they represent major trajectories to conservation planning in Sub-Saharan Africa and other parts of the developing world. In considering the histories of these models in Sub-Saharan Africa, I argue that conservation planners often prioritize economic and ecological factors over the political circumstances that influence the effectiveness of these approaches. The study concludes by suggesting that an analysis of these three models provides a lens to examine ongoing debates regarding the employ of conservation as an economic development strategy and the challenges to environmental governance in the 21st century. [source]

Corporate assets as a trust: for whom are corporate officers trustees in insolvency? the role of incentives in maintaining the trust,

INTERNATIONAL INSOLVENCY REVIEW, Issue 2 2003
Ronald B. Davis
Uncertainty is a constant theme when corporations are in financial distress. Yet any successful restructuring of an insolvent corporation requires numerous stakeholders, including creditors, employees and suppliers, repose some degree of trust in those corporate officers who are trying to continue to operate the firm while restructuring it into a viable entity. This article looks at the issue of the positive and negative incentives that can be generated for corporate officers and directors from both their continuing control of corporate assets and their potential personal liability arising from corporate activity both before and after the corporation became insolvent. The potential role these incentives can play in providing a basis for the trust needed to meet the other governance challenges that arise in a restructuring is reviewed in the context of recent developments in Canada concerning the duties of corporate directors to creditors during insolvency. Also reviewed is the role of directors' insurance and indemnification in altering the incentives' effects on directors' behavior. Finally a critical appraisal is given of the present legal regime's provision for compromise of claims against corporate officers during restructuring, as well as the proposal to amend the law to allow complete exoneration of corporate directors from certain liabilities on insolvency. The article urges caution in altering the effects of incentives that may create the necessary basis for trust in the distressed corporation's officers amongst those stakeholders whose co-operation is crucial to restructuring. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source]

The Challenge of Strengthening Nonprofits and Civil Society

PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION REVIEW, Issue 2008
Steven Rathgeb Smith
The Winter Commission Report was centrally concerned with improving the performance of state and local governments. Since the issuance of the commission's report in 1993, the delivery of services by state and local government has been substantially changed by the growing role of nonprofit organizations in providing public services and representing citizen interests. As a result, state and local governments and nonprofit agencies are faced with complex governance challenges. The central argument of this paper is that despite the dramatic changes in the relationship between government and nonprofit organizations in recent years, the key tenets of the Winter Commission report,the need for improved training and education, greater transparency and accountability, more emphasis on performance, and improved citizen engagement,remain deeply relevant in improving the governance of the public services in an increasingly complex policy process and service delivery system at the state and local levels. [source]