How do public private partnerships influence business school performance in English-speaking Caribbean?

This thesis addresses the question of how business schoolsestablished as public privatepartnerships (PPPs) within a regional university in the English-speaking Caribbean survived for over twenty-one years and achieved legitimacy in their environment. The aim of the study was to examine how public and private sector actors contributed to the evolution of the PPPs. A social network perspective provided a broad relational focus from which to explore the phenomenon and engage disciplinary and middle-rangetheories to develop explanations. Legitimacy theory provided an appropriate performance dimension from which to assess PPP success. An embedded multiple-case research design, with three case sites analysed at three levels including the country and university environment, the PPP as a firm and the subgroup level constituted the methodological framing of the research process. The analysis techniques included four methods but relied primarily on discourse and social network analysis of interview data from 40 respondents across the three sites. A staged analysis of the evolution of the firm provided the ‘time and effects’ antecedents which formed the basis for sense-making to arrive at explanations of the public-private relationship-influenced change. A conceptual model guided the study and explanations from the cross-case analysis were used to refine the process model and develop a dynamic framework and set of theoretical propositions that would underpin explanations of PPP success and legitimacy in matched contexts through analytical generalisation. The study found that PPP success was based on different models of collaboration and partner resource contribution that arose from a confluence of variables including the development of shared purpose, private voluntary control in corporate governance mechanisms and boundary spanning leadership. The study contributes a contextual theory that explains how PPPs work and a research agenda of ‘corporate governance as inspiration’ from a sociological perspective of ‘liquid modernity’. Recommendations for policy and management practice were developed.

Az abduktív menedzsmenttől a tudáskormányzásig = From abductive management to knowledge governance

Hogyan juthat az ember helyes döntésekig egy adott területre (mikroverzumra) vonatkozó mély, belsővé tett tudás birtokában anélkül, hogy következtetne? Az abduktivitás fogalmának körüljárása után öt hüvelykujjszabályt fogalmaz meg a szerző az abdukció működéséről, majd összekapcsolja azt a vezetői munkával, tudáskormányzási kontextusban. Ebből kiindulva a globális munkatérelmélet (Global Workspace Theory) alkalmazásával a vezetők vagy az organizmusként felfogott szervezetek abduktív kapacitásának fejlesztési lehetőségeit vizsgálja. Befejezésül egy hatlépéses, a szervezeti szintű abduktivitásra rákérdező speciális tudásaudit-módszertan rövid kifejtésére vállalkozik, két esettanulmány vázlatos bemutatásával. _____ How to make right decisions without any inferences, thanks to interiorized, deep knowledge on the given field (micro verse)? After defining the concept of abductivity, the author presents five thumbnail-like rules about the nature of abductivity, combining it with leadership aspects and knowledge governance approach. He introduces a method supporting the development of abductive capability of a leader or an organization as a whole, using the Global Works pace Theory. Finally, the author tries to briefly formulate six steps of an organization-level knowledge governance audit framework, illustrating its relevance with two short case studies.

Making the governance of public bodies work : chair-chief executive relationships in practice

The authors gratefully acknowledge a grant from the British Academy (SG10591) and an award from the University of Aberdeen Knowledge Exchange and Transfer Fund.

Making the governance of public bodies work : chair-chief executive relationships in practice

The authors gratefully acknowledge a grant from the British Academy (SG10591) and an award from the University of Aberdeen Knowledge Exchange and Transfer Fund.

A transatlantic case: the derivative action as a corporate governance tool

The derivative action as a minority shareholder protection device seems to be almost a dead-letter law in the British Isles as compared with the United States. Whether it can or should be revived through legislative reform and judicial interpretation presents us with important governance questions at first instance, but also raises questions regarding the importance of law, as distinct from non-legally enforceable norms, to the development of corporate governance systems, in particular regarding the director-shareholder relationship.

Addressing surprise and uncertain futures in marine science, marine governance, and society

On an increasingly populated planet, with decreasing biodiversity and limited new opportunities to tap unexploited natural resources, there is a clear need to adjust aspects of marine management and governance. Although sectarian management has succeeded in addressing and managing some important threats to marine ecosystems, unintended consequences are often associated with overlooking nonlinear interactions and cumulative impacts that increase the risk of surprises in social-ecological systems. In this paper, we begin to untangle science-governance-society (SGS) interdependencies in marine systems by considering how to recognize the risk of surprise in social and ecological dynamics. Equally important is drawing attention to our state of preparedness, adaptation, and timeliness of response in ecosystem governance and society, which involve fostering transformations away from rigid and nonintegrated structures of governance. More inclusive decision-making processes, deeper understanding of complexity, and colearning across SGS can help to build constructive solutions that are likely to benefit multiple stakeholders and build capacity to understand and respond to change.

U.S. wildfire governance as social-ecological problem

There are fundamental spatial and temporal disconnects between the specific policies that have been crafted to address our wildfire challenges. The biophysical changes in fuels, wildfire behavior, and climate have created a new set of conditions for which our wildfire governance system is poorly suited to address. To address these challenges, a reorientation of goals is needed to focus on creating an anticipatory wildfire governance system focused on social and ecological resilience. Key characteristics of this system could include the following: (1) not taking historical patterns as givens; (2) identifying future social and ecological thresholds of concern; (3) embracing diversity/heterogeneity as principles in ecological and social responses; and (4) incorporating learning among different scales of actors to create a scaffolded learning system.