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Institutionalist Perspective (institutionalist + perspective)

Distribution by Scientific Domains

Humanities and Social Sciences	50%
Business, Economics, Finance and Accounting	50%

Selected Abstracts

The environmental dimension of sustainable regional development in the English regions: reflections upon the experience of North West England

ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY AND GOVERNANCE, Issue 5 2005
Sue Kidd
Abstract This paper explores the practice of sustainable development and the emphasis given to environmental considerations in the English regions. Part 1 provides an overview of the rise of regional governance in England and the place of sustainable development within the new regional structures. Part 2 then focuses upon the North West, and the changing emphasis given to the environmental dimension of sustainable regional development is explored with reference to a series of key regional documents. Part 3 considers the extent to which the analysis of the North West might be indicative of other English regions. This is followed by consideration of the importance of institutional structures in promoting sustainable patterns of regional development. It is concluded that an institutionalist perspective may be helpful in understanding why some regions are performing better than others in promoting sustainable patterns of development, and various avenues of future research are proposed. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment. [source]

MANAGEMENT ACCOUNTING CHANGE AND NEW PUBLIC MANAGEMENT IN LOCAL GOVERNMENT: A REASSESSMENT OF AMBITIONS AND RESULTS , AN INSTITUTIONALIST APPROACH TO ACCOUNTING CHANGE IN THE DUTCH PUBLIC SECTOR

FINANCIAL ACCOUNTABILITY & MANAGEMENT, Issue 3 2008
Henk J. Ter Bogt
Dutch municipalities and provinces, denoted here as local government, have seen a succession of changes in their management accounting systems and have also introduced other changes related to New Public Management (NPM) in the last twenty years. This paper examines accounting changes, such as the introduction of accrual accounting, output and outcome budgets and performance measurement, from an institutionalist point of view. The paper presents experiences of 23 politicians and professional managers with the various changes over a period of fifteen to twenty years. The interviewees, just like various researchers in the field of NPM, were critical of the accounting changes and their effects. However, several of them also made clear that, seen over the long run, the changes did have some effects that they liked and seem to be in line with the ,ideals' presented in NPM literature. The paper suggests that an institutionalist perspective is helpful for studying change processes in organizations and for observing factors and developments that might not be noticed when a more functional and short-term perspective is adopted. [source]

The Political Economy of Pension Reform in Eastern Europe

INTERNATIONAL SOCIAL SECURITY REVIEW, Issue 2-3 2001
Katharina Müller
The retirement schemes in several East European countries underwent fundamental change in recent years, defying conventional wisdom in welfare state research. This article takes a new look at the determinants of paradigm choice in the area of old-age security, comparing the Polish, Hungarian and Czech experience from an actor-centred institutionalist perspective. The author points out that structural factors , notably the financial situation of retirement schemes and the level of external debt , largely determined the set of main pension reform actors, as well as their relative strength. The resulting actor constellations produced the basic paradigm choice, based on the actors' respective cognitive maps and consequent perception of pension reform alternatives. Tactical moves and the strategic potentialities of the chosen paradigm were also relevant. [source]

PERFORMING GOVERNANCE: A PARTNERSHIP BOARD DRAMATURGY

PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION, Issue 4 2007
TIM FREEMAN
This paper explores the governance of complex public sector partnerships through a detailed case study of a Joint Commissioning Partnership Board (JCPB) in the South East of England. It argues that a theoretical and empirical focus on the instrumental roles of boards has resulted in an under-appreciation of their symbolic purposes, especially in the context of the governance of inter-organizational relationships. The paper considers the performative dimension of partnership governance, highlighting the role of the symbolic in institutional enactment. Following a brief overview of governance in public sector partnerships, the case study site for the empirical research is introduced. The instrumental and symbolic roles of management boards are considered from a new institutionalist perspective and a dramaturgical analysis of institutional enactment undertaken to explore interplays of the symbolic and instrumental in strategy formation. Some implications for our understanding of the symbolic in partnership governance are discussed. [source]