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If we start from the premise that institutions are socially constructed (Berger and Luckmann 1966) and that economic activity is socially instituted (Polanyi 1957) and a situated process (Granovetter 1992), […]

Byline: Rene Kemp, Saeed Parto, Robert B. Gibson In this paper we examine and elaborate on the central elements of sustainable development and governance, considering their interrelations as they have emerged from the core themes in sustainable development discourses over the past decade and a half. We argue that sustainability is best viewed as a socially instituted process of adaptive change in which innovation is a necessary element. We discuss four key elements of governance for sustainability, which are integrated into the concept of transition management. The result is a conceptual framework for policy-making and action-taking aimed at progress towards sustainability.

Byline: Saeed Parto This paper examines the causes of the failure by the Region of Waterloo (Ontario, Canada) to meet its objectives on sustainability. The analysis shows that in such macro matters as sustainability, scale does indeed matter, as do numerous other factors including the degree of trust in interrelations, perceptions and convictions, conflicting interests and competing agendas, the manner in which discourse occurs on policy formation and implementation, and ideology as expressed through partisan politics. This paper contributes to the discourse on sustainability in two ways. It proposes an evolutionary, multi-dimensional analytical framework to study sustainable development. The framework is then applied to a case study to underline the political implications of operationalising sustainable development

A shift of focus is discernible in the literature on industrial agglomeration and regional economic development in the post-Fordist/globalization context. In addition to economic factors, the new focus emphasizes the importance of social and cultural factors for the growth of new industrial agglomerations. However, despite the importance attached to the (natural) environment in writings on organizations, regions and economies over the last few years, the literature on industrial agglomeration continues to remain devoid of any substantial references to the environment. Attaining sustainability at the local/regional (see note) level requires, among other factors, collective effort by industrial organizations toward common goals including resource conservation, production efficiency, economic viability and social responsibility. This paper explores the possibilities for bridging the current gaps between regional planning policy and the requirements of ecosystem integrity and sustainable industrial development in the practical contexts provided by ‘eco-industrial parks’ (EIPs) and the Waterloo Industrial Network for Sustainability (WINS). Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. and ERP Environment [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The primary aim of this paper is to identify key similarities and differences in the conceptualization of culture across the major theories of regional socioeconomic science, including economic, business, administrative, social, cultural and political dimensions acting at the regional and local scales. The second goal is to present an overview of the knowledge base and third to cohesively examine and partially recreate the topic using the semi-systematic review method. The final objective of examining the aforementioned issues is to clarify the dynamic correlation in the structuring of business and innovation culture, as well as to identify the characteristics that contribute to the sustainable culture of business and regional innovation systems, including long-term sustainable development. The research shows that the coexistence and combination of innovative culture at the business and regional levels should be perceived as a dynamic and co-evolutionary process involving a variety of factors. Local organizations and institutes that foster entrepreneurship are among the elements that enhance the innovation culture; however, having all of the resources in isolation is insufficient for an efficient ecosystem. This study proposes the establishment of a framework that will enhance the growth of innovation, cultural evolution and regional ecosystem performance. The Institutes of Local Development and Innovation (ILDI) are a policy idea that might give effective micro–meso-level solutions for the region. These policy proposals will diagnose the regional business culture under the prism of strategy, technology, and management levels. The specific investigation attempted in this paper demonstrates that several converging fruitful paths have already been created in the relative international literature. These paths could be combined and deepened further by studying the close evolutionary interconnection between business and regional innovation culture as it emerges at a global scale in the present. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We propose an institutional analysis of the development of the Indian dairy sector to investigate the drivers and extent of its inclusiveness. The institutional insight highlights that the inclusion of millions of smallholders in Indian industrial dairy chains comes from a dynamic network of three-tier cooperatives and specific sectoral formal and informal institutions favoring resource pooling and cooperation. This study demonstrates that an analysis of the bundles of rights held by smallholders in the sector supports assessing and monitoring inclusiveness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Today, the world faces significant and complex challenges (economic, social, political, and environmental); the pandemic has further exacerbated these challenges and widened already-existing inequalities. Kate Raworth's doughnut economy framework provides an alternate lens for considering economic development processes and local, national, and international policies. In this article, I discuss the doughnut economy framework from an institutionalist perspective. Given the global nature of the model, several challenges stand in the way of operationalizing it. After highlighting various pathways for putting the framework into action, I discuss risks and opportunities facing such approaches, along with broader institutional changes needed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Various studies have evaluated efficiency of regional innovation systems (RIS) and analyzed the determinants of it. However, there have been some limitations in these studies, such as the lack of analyzing dynamics in the efficiency of RIS and insufficient consideration of the internal processes of RIS. Therefore, we use a two-stage approach in employing network DEA, first constructing balanced panel data for 16 local governments over 16 years (1999-2014) and then analyzing the efficiency and determinants of the Korean innovation system. The implications of the analysis are as follows: (1) negative side of the disparity of regional imbalance for the general RIS efficiency was found; (2) the R&D investment role of central government was confirmed to strengthen RIS; (3) government's simultaneous efforts to develop R&D efficiency as well as economic efficiency for the innovation system were requested; and (4) variances in South Korean RIS efficiency were unveiled. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sustainability has emerged as a critical macromarketing perspective over the last five decades. Starting with the early concerns in the 1960s about the world's finite resources that would limit economic growth, sustainability thinking has expanded to encompass societal issues and ecological and environmental considerations in economic and governance activities. Governments and businesses need to act in tandem to address myriad world problems associated with climate change, pollution, environmental degradation, depleting resources, and the socio-economic disparities that characterize persistent world hunger and poverty. A vital aspect of this challenge is to stop or reverse unsustainable production and consumption that have hitherto been pursued as part of market-driven business activity. Marketing, through its market-driven consumption-oriented practices, may have knowingly or unknowingly promoted these unsustainable production-consumption practices. Therefore, it needs to change its orientation from merely being responsive to consumer and market needs into a more responsible approach that drives markets for sustainable products and services and builds sustainable societies. In this paper, we review how sustainable marketing considerations have grown but not to the extent of becoming the driver of markets and business practices that meet sustainability goals. To this end, we present a framework for driving sustainable consumption through corporate marketing strategy and relevant government interventions. We highlight four strategies of corporate marketing and four types of government intervention for sustainable marketing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The scholarship on waste governance tends to consider it a standalone policy area. This article seeks to enrich this scholarship by attending to relationships between waste governance, the transformation of waste spaces, and capitalist urban planning and development practices. I draw on the notion of eviscerating urbanization to argue that metropolitan and waste governance act as mechanisms to capture value from waste and land simultaneously. I present original research from Ankara, Turkey, and I narrate the evolving relationship between the waste disposal system and urban transformation in the early 2000s. The findings reveal the strategic role and agency of metropolitan governance in the processes of value production. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sustainability has become a major goal of domestic and international development. This essay analyzes the transitions of normative ideas embedded in the notion of sustainability by reviewing the discourses in the representative reports and literature from different periods. Three sets of ideas are proposed: inter- and intra-generational equity, stability of public systems, and a sense of solidarity, which confirms the scope of community and functions as a precondition for the previous two ideas. This essay uses the case of a health system in a hypothetical country to illustrate that, besides securing financial sustainability, a genuinely sustainable public system must also meet the three normative ideas of sustainability. This essay also finds that these three ideas may create intrinsic tensions within the prevalent policy-making model-democracy. The pursuit of sustainability is not only the responsibility of a democratic government, but also a shared moral obligation of the body politic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Scholars of the geography of innovation have produced an impressive body of literature over the last decades. However, until recently this research focused on successful core regions, implicitly assuming that there is no innovation in peripheral areas. This view is being increasingly questioned, which is reflected by a rising number of papers, special issues, and edited volumes on innovation outside of agglomerations. Hence, this rapidly emerging field calls for a critical survey. In order to identify a future research agenda, this article conducts a systematic literature review of the work on innovation in the periphery (1960–2016). As such, it explores the recurring themes and key issues of the field and discusses the various periphery concepts applied, ranging from a geographic to a functional perspective on various scales. In doing so, it outlines options for policy makers and suggests avenues for future research: first, the periphery concept needs more refinement. Second, future studies should include systematic comparisons of regions. Third, an evolutionary perspective might provide new insights. Fourth, future work could explore the benefits peripheries offer for certain kinds of innovation. Fifth, urban–rural linkages might be of higher relevance than assumed. Sixth, research should go beyond the well-known examples. Finally, the analysis could be extended by applying a broader understanding of innovation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The notion of a circular economy (CE) developed out of the work of Kenneth Boulding and others concerned about Earth’s limited resources and its capacity for regeneration. The concept has recently become the heart of an economic perspective influencing governments, companies, and researchers. Core topics examined by those researchers include resource use, economic value, and systems thinking. The CE literature and the tradition of institutional economics (IE) have important elements of compatibility and complementarity which we examine in this article. There are also opportunities for collaboration between CE and IE. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Public-sector innovation and entrepreneurship usually refer to policies undertaken by public administrations or driven by urban regimes in view of furthering economic development. Some researchers study these processes from a management perspective; others critique them as vehicles of neoliberalization. However, scant attention has been paid to everyday technical and service innovation undertaken by municipal departments and employees. Although this innovation is usually not driven by markets, municipalities’ small size and geographic rootedness suggest it can be apprehended using concepts from firm-level studies. Our study of a municipal innovation competition in Quebec provides examples of everyday municipal innovation. We find that municipalities’ internal capacity determines their innovativeness, that learning occurs, and that the motivation and evaluation of everyday municipal innovation are not market-based. This calls into question the appropriation of the term urban entrepreneurship by urban political economists and invites students of cities to examine municipal entrepreneurial processes more closely. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Our analysis is based on firm-specific data compiled from the Russian Trading System stock exchange and SKRIN (CKPиH in Russian) database. We seek to identify the factors behind Russia’s dramatically improved corporate sector performance from the beginning of the 2000s to December 2007. We argue that improved long-term corporate performance was a consequence of several policy initiatives associated with the state-dominated banking sector, which enabled statesubsidized investment funds to be channeled from a structurally reengineered energy sector to targeted investment projects located in other industries. We claim that Russia’s industrial strategy closely conforms to Alexander Gerschenkron’s catch-up theory. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Japan is going through a transformation, yet it is difficult to judge which model should be chosen as a direction to go in with corporate reforms. Badly needed initiatives seeking to replace outdated managerial habits by new best practices in Japanese firms are being jeopardized by organizational members whose goal is to maintain the status quo -- in terms of both political power and everyday work routines. Yet managerial habits and behaviours need to change if Japanese firms are to be entrepreneurial and innovative. According to institutionalism, blocking new initiatives is normal, and societal support is needed for major reform attempts. The focus of this paper is to shed light on how society in Japan is divided when it comes to large firms altering practices with which they have been traditionally managed. Our proposition is that complex, multi-element reform packages -- having a potentially opposing dominant coalition, which is the case of Japan -- ought to be implemented following a well-defined, prioritized listing of elements. After examining an attitude survey carried out in Japan, our findings revealed two clusters with a particularly high level of support for traditional management. Moreover, out of the two, one appeared to be extremely passive and resistant to any sort of change. In order to fight general resistance and reform outdated practices, our survey shows that Japan could move further towards a system compensating performance rather than seniority and giving more chance to women, discarding mass-recruitment, slow promotion whilst also maintaining the most deeply-rooted traditional values such as job security, paternalism or harmony in corporate life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Taking the idea that institutional reproduction is not obvious and that institutions are vulnerable has significant conceptual implications. Institutional vulnerability can arise through communication between actors in a common language. To apprehend this requires an elaboration of John Searle's (1995, 2005) argument that language is the fundamental institution. Ontologically, language delineates and circumscribes a community. A community cannot function without a common language, and language at the same time constitutes a community's boundaries, allowing for focused and effective communication within a community. Communication through language introduces ambiguity as well, however, and so institutional reproduction, mediated by language, is a deeply contentious process. Communication across boundaries may particularly "irritate" a system, as Niklas Luhmann has argued. How can institutions then be re-identified through change? Searle's general form for institutions is in need of elaboration. We develop arguments by drawing upon Luhmann's (1995) systems analysis and notion of communication. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years the revitalization of the Nigerian cocoa industry through a cocoa rebirth initiative has been a major focus of the Nigerian government. By applying the analytical framework of the Agricultural System of Innovation this paper traces the process of value-addition in the cocoa agro-industrial system, examines the impact of the Nigerian cocoa rebirth initiative and makes suggestions that are critical for strengthening the innovation system in a traditional sector. The study demonstrated that though an innovation system in the cocoa industry is far from being realized, the policy intervention of the cocoa rebirth initiative can be potent as an instrument of innovation. The findings suggest that the policy emphasis should aim to organize the cocoa rebirth initiative as an innovation-focused programme that enables interactive learning among the actors in cocoa research, production and industrial processing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on β and σ convergence analysis, we find a high persistence of innovation gaps for international innovation indices reported by the European Commission. Our research confirms the diverging scientific potential across the analyzed economies. Estimation provides evidence of convergence in the case of R&D expenses and the relative position on the global technological frontier. We propose a simple fixed effect panel regression measuring relative innovativeness potential. Our model suggests that current ranking leaders, i.e., Nordic countries (Sweden, Denmark, and Finland) and Germany, are likely to further outpace the United States. Central and Eastern European countries are achieving the greatest relative gains but are unlikely to exceed 70% of US potential. Peripheral European countries, South Africa, Turkey, and Russia are projected to further lose their innovativeness position despite their weaker initial position. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In management accounting literature an institutionalist stream is emerging that generates intense discussions and research (Scapens 1994; Burns and Scapens 2000; Duindam and Verstegen 2000). Although the discussion in the [...]

Interdependence is the occasion for both cooperation and conflict.--Allan Schmid If one would understand the corporation problem, he must learn the peculiar feature of this form of business, ...--Walton Hamilton [...]

The purpose here is to discuss the institutional systems principles of hierarchy, feedback, and openness, and to explain the inadequacy of Forrester-type system dynamics programs to apply those principles. Hierarchy [...]

Recent scandals involving financial analysts shed light on conflicts of interest in the stock market. Financial analysts were accused of releasing dishonest 'buy' recommendations for stocks and biased earnings forecasts. [...]

Equity criteria are one set of efficiency criteria crucial for evaluating and judging production institutions and processes. Efficiency means the ability to produce a desired effect. Before efficiency can be [...]