Corporate Autonomy And Institutional Control

Stevens examines institutional frameworks for Crown corporations in Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba between the early 1970s and the mid 1980s, showing how each framework establishes different practices and offers distinct strategic advantages. Organizational approaches in Alberta most closely approximated what the author calls a "self-contained" design, in which corporate actors had the advantage and were most able to achieve their own objectives. In Manitoba, where "vertical information systems" prevailed, central bureaucratic monitoring agents tended, to some extent, to wield influence over the corporations. Saskatchewan practice was akin to a "lateral relations" pattern, with an equilibrium between corporate and bureaucratic goals. Stevens's comparison of Crown corporation organization designs suggests that, while no one form is inherently more efficient than another, each leads to qualitatively different outcomes. He concludes that the most important issue in problems of organization design is who is winning the Crown corporation "game" -- a finding of considerable interest to all students of government enterprise.

The Institutional Theory of the Firm examines recent and previous organization theory literature to advocate what Evans (1995) refers to as the "embedded autonomy" of the firm, as well as its role in being simultaneously anchored in, for example, corporate legislation and regulatory practices on the national, regional (i.e., within the European Union) and transnational levels, while at the same time being granted the right to operate with significant degrees of freedom within this legal-regulatory model. Seen in this view, the embedded autonomy of the corporation represents a theoretical view of the corporation that complements the market-based image of the corporation in economic theory. When advocating the institutional theory model, three forms of embedded autonomy are examined. First, the corporation is enacted as a legal entity sui juris—as a freestanding "legal person" in corporate law and within the regulatory framework that serves to enforce legislation in everyday life settings. Second, the corporation is embedded within what social theorists refer to as moral economies, the norms and values that regulate what are the socially acceptable and legitimate means for conducting business. Third and finally, the corporation is embedded in governance, a relatively complex economic concept that denotes legal and regulatory control on the societal and economic system levels, and on the level of the individual corporation. By combining the three forms of embeddedness, sanctioned by law, norms, and governance, the embedded autonomy of the firm is secured on the basis of a variety of social practices and resources. This book brings together a diverse literature including management studies, economic sociology, legal theory, finance theory, and mainstream economic theory to advance the argument that the corporation is best understood as what is embedded in a social and economic context, yet best serving its defined and stipulated ends by assuming considerable degrees of freedom to operate in isolation from various stakeholders. It will be of relevance for a variety of readers, including graduate students, management scholars, policy-makers, and management consultants interested in organization theory and management studies.

By comparing the autonomy, control and internal management of public organizations, this book show how New Public Management doctrines work out in three small European states with different politico-administrative regimes. Using survey data on 226 state agencies, hypotheses drawing on organization theory and neo-institutional schools are tested.

Managers vs. Owners: The Struggle for Corporate Control in American Democracy deals with a subject of profound importance: understanding the place of the modern corporation in a democratic society. This latest volume in the acclaimed Ruffin Series in Business Ethics describes how the balance between corporate power and government regulation has changed with the interests of society as a whole. The first section examines the debates over the rules that individuals or organized groups would agree to follow in their interactions to accrue social advantages. The second section looks at management's point of view and tells how law promotes the need for managerial collective action and provides a vocabulary for articulating management as a profession. The authors conclude by looking at the impact of collective investor action - especially institutional investors - on the efforts by managers to preserve their autonomy. This examination of the inherent conflicts between the interests of corporate owners, the interests of the larger society, and the interests of managers who run corporations will be essential reading for students, scholars, and professionals concerned with the place of the large corporation in a democratic society.

Governance is becoming increasingly important in universities just as it is in the wider world of commerce and banking. Historically, universities were run by their academic communities but as mass higher education has taken root, as university research has become a critical element in national economies and as the demand for more accountability both financial and in academic performance has grown, pressure has mounted for a ‘modernisation’ of governance structures. One aspect of ‘modernisation’, particularly important in many European systems, and in Japan, has been the decision by governments to give institutions greater autonomy, more control over their budgets and legal responsibility for the employment of their staff. International trends to introduce greater competition between institutions, to encourage greater institutional differentiation and give greater play to market forces has led to an emphasis on leadership, a more systematic involvement of external stakeholders and a more ‘corporate style of governance. At the same time this has often led to a sense of loss of collegiality, a redistribution of authority and a growing gap between the ‘centre’ and the ‘periphery’ within universities. This book analyses governance change in nine major higher education systems, Australia, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Norway, the UK and the USA, each account being the result of independent research by a leading authority in the field and describes how a convergence of governance structures has been mediated by the historical, cultural, political and social characteristics of the different systems. Michael Shattock is a leading authority on university governance; this study offers the most up to date account of governance reform in a range of higher education systems, an analysis of the common trends and an assessment of their impact on the idea of a university. It will be essential reading for academics, postgraduates and practitioners in higher education.

The proper role of bureaucracy in democratic governance has long been a matter of controversy. One part of the debate involves the argument that democratic control and bureaucratic autonomy are dichotomous opposites: if there is democratic control, there cannot be bureaucratic autonomy, and vice versa. This article develops a spatial model of bureaucratic policy choices that reveals that conditions of democratic control and bureaucratic autonomy are not incompatible: the interactions among political institutions not only create the condition in which government agencies must respond to the will of the elected officials but also provide the opportunity for the agencies to reflect their own preferences in policy outcomes. Empirical analyses of occupational safety and health enforcement between 1982 and 2000 provide support for the general argument that bureaucratic responsiveness and bureaucratic autonomy together constitute the behavioral characteristics of bureaucracy under institutional influence.

This book explores the enactment of technologically mediated Human Resource Management (HRM) in the gig economy from various perspectives. The gig economy offers a new form of work which is in line with the ongoing consumer desire for convenience. Also known as the online platform, on-demand or digital platform economy, the gig economy is perhaps one of the most distinctive and extreme sides of the increasingly digitalised and fragmented nature of work. This volume examines various challenges that exist between online labor platforms and human resource management in the realm of the gig economy. The chapters in this book explore issues like institutional complexity, technological supervision of gig workers, recruitment in the gig economy, quality of work and work fairness. They further illustrate the importance of gig work being incorporated within the parameters of HRM research given the existence of many activities and practices that are typically associated with HR functions within traditional organisational forms. This book will be a beneficial read for advanced students and researchers of Management, Economics, Business and Marketing. It was originally published as a special issue of The International Journal of Human Resource Management.