Governance Entrepreneurs

Innovators of all stripes—such as Airbnb and Uber—are increasingly using new technological capabilities to circumvent traditional regulatory systems, or at least put pressure on public policymakers to reform laws and regulations that are outmoded, inefficient, or illogical. Disruptive innovators are emerging in other fields, too, using technologies as wide‐​ranging as 3D printers, drones, driverless cars, Bitcoin and blockchain, virtual reality, the “Internet of Things,” and more. Some of these innovators just love to tinker. Others want to change the world with new life‐​enriching products. And many more are just looking to earn a living and support their families. Regardless of why they are doing it, these evasive entrepreneurs— innovators who don’t always conform to social or legal norms—are changing the world and challenging their governments. Beyond boosting economic growth and raising our living standards, evasive entrepreneurialism can play an important role in constraining unaccountable governmental activities that often fail to reflect common sense or the consent of the governed. In essence, evasive entrepreneurialism and technological civil disobedience are new checks and balances that help us rein in the excesses of the state, make government more transparent and accountable, and ensure that our civil rights and economic liberties are respected. Evasive Entrepreneurs and the Future of Governance explores why evasive entrepreneurs are increasingly engaged in different forms of technological civil disobedience and also makes the case that we should accept—and often even embrace—a certain amount of that activity as a way to foster innovation, economic growth, and accountable government.

Global partnerships have transformed international institutions by creating platforms for direct collaboration with NGOs, foundations, companies and local actors. They introduce a model of governance that is decentralized, networked and voluntary, and which melds public purpose with private practice. How can we account for such substantial institutional change in a system made by states and for states? Governance Entrepreneurs examines the rise and outcomes of global partnerships across multiple policy domains: human rights, health, environment, sustainable development and children. It argues that international organizations have played a central role as entrepreneurs of such governance innovation in coalition with pro-active states and non-state actors, yet this entrepreneurship is risky and success is not assured. This is the first study to leverage comprehensive quantitative and qualitative analysis that illuminates the variable politics and outcomes of public-private partnerships across multilateral institutions, including the UN Secretariat, the World Bank, United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF).

A comparative analysis of how international organizations have engaged in public-private partnerships, explaining the rise and outcomes of global partnerships across multiple policy domains.

The Role of Business in Global Governance offers an empirically rich analysis of the new political role of corporations in the co-performance of governance functions beyond the state. Within comparative case studies, potential explanations of the political role of transnational corporations are systematically tested.

In this book Paul Dragos Aligica revisits the theory of political self-governance in the context of recent developments in behavioral economics and political philosophy that have challenged the foundations of this theory. Building on the work of the 'Bloomington School' created by Nobel Laureate Elinor Ostrom and Public Choice political economy co-founder Vincent Ostrom, Aligica presents a fresh conceptualization of the key processes at the core of democratic-liberal governance systems involving civic competence and public entrepreneurship. The result is not only a re-assessment and re-articulation of the theories constructed by the Bloomington School of Public Choice, but also a new approach to several cutting-edge discussions relevant to governance studies and applied institutional theory, such as the debates generated by the recent waves of populism, paternalism and authoritarianism.

Family businesses—the predominant form of business organization around the world—can make numerous, critical contributions to the economy and family well-being in both financial and qualitative terms. But dysfunctional family businesses can be difficult to manage, painful experiences at best, and they can destroy family wealth and personal relationships. This book explores the dynamics of family business management, in the context of constantly changing market conditions and the role that knowledge management plays in strategic planning and adaptation. Integrating the literature from family business, entrepreneurship, industrial psychology, and knowledge management, and with illustrative examples from a variety of enterprises, the authors address such topics as: •How family businesses can compete in the new knowledge economy •How to manage a family business when knowledge is its main asset •How to transfer knowledge (and how to keep it alive) through family generations Within this framework, the authors argue that effective resource management—especially intangible resources—is central to enabling a family-run organization to maintain a sustainable competitive advantage over time. They note that families often develop systemic, intuitive, or tacit knowledge that transcends rational decision making and needs to be recognized and nurtured as a distinctive asset. The authors demonstrate that trans-generational value is achieved when the family firm innovates and adapts itself to changing external and internal conditions. This kind of entrepreneurial performance requires dynamic capabilities and processes designed to acquire, exchange, combine and even shed knowledge and practices; and, in turn, dynamic capabilities result from mechanisms of knowledge sharing, collective learning, experience accumulation, and transfer.

Rethinking Private Authority examines the role of non-state actors in global environmental politics, arguing that a fuller understanding of their role requires a new way of conceptualizing private authority. Jessica Green identifies two distinct forms of private authority--one in which states delegate authority to private actors, and another in which entrepreneurial actors generate their own rules, persuading others to adopt them. Drawing on a wealth of empirical evidence spanning a century of environmental rule making, Green shows how the delegation of authority to private actors has played a small but consistent role in multilateral environmental agreements over the past fifty years, largely in the area of treaty implementation. This contrasts with entrepreneurial authority, where most private environmental rules have been created in the past two decades. Green traces how this dynamic and fast-growing form of private authority is becoming increasingly common in areas ranging from organic food to green building practices to sustainable tourism. She persuasively argues that the configuration of state preferences and the existing institutional landscape are paramount to explaining why private authority emerges and assumes the form that it does. In-depth cases on climate change provide evidence for her arguments. Groundbreaking in scope, Rethinking Private Authority demonstrates that authority in world politics is diffused across multiple levels and diverse actors, and it offers a more complete picture of how private actors are helping to shape our response to today's most pressing environmental problems.

List of Tables and Figures; List of Acronyms; Acknowledgements; Introduction: Thinking Big Again; Chapter 1: From Crisis Ideology to the Division of Innovative Labour; Chapter 2: Technology, Innovation and Growth; Chapter 3: Risk-Taking State: From 'De-risking' to 'Bring It On!'; Chapter 4: The US Entrepreneurial State; Chapter 5: The State behind the iPhone; Chapter 6: Pushing vs. Nudging the Green Industrial Revolution; Chapter 7: Wind and Solar Power: Government Success Stories and Technology in Crisis; Chapter 8: Risks and Rewards: From Rotten Apples to Symbiotic Ecosystems; Chapter 9: So.

A burgeoning literature is currently exploring the rise of a new migratory profile: migrants engaged in Transnational Entrepreneurship, referring to immigrants who are engaged in cross-border business involving their country of origin and destination, both perceived as lands of opportunity. Until now, little has been done in linking business studies and migration studies in this particular field of research on diaspora politics and Transnational Entrepreneurship; besides, the focus has mostly been on identifying the key independent variables, patterns, and developing hypotheses on the favourable and non-favourable factors promoting migrant business involvement in the country of residence alone. This book collects the main findings of the European Horizon-2020-RISE Project "DiasporaLink", a multidisciplinary project that has gathered the most prominent scholars in their respective field. Grounded in a variety of empirical evidences of the impact of Transnational Entrepreneurship, the book aims to explore the new global social pattern of entrepreneurs doing business transnationally. The chapters in this book were first published as a special issue of the Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies.

What legitimizes power within a corporation? This question is of concern to the millions of citizens whose lives depend upon the fate of business corporations. The rules, institutions and practices of corporate governance define the limits of the power to direct, and determine under what conditions this power is acceptable. Effective corporate governance has long been defined in terms of economic performance. More recent studies have focused on philosophical, political and historical analyses. Entrepreneurs and Democracy unites these strands of inquiry - the legitimacy of power, the evolution of multiple forms of governance and the economics of performance - and proposes a framework for future study. It explores the opposing tensions of entrepreneurial force and social fragmentation that form the basis of legitimate corporate governance in modern societies. In doing so, it identifies a common logic that links both the democratization of corporate governance and the growth of economic performance.