This paper contends that rationality is more properly evaluated as a property of an organization's relationships with its stakeholders than of the organization itself. We predicate our approach on ...the observation that stakeholders can hold goals quite distinct from those of owners and top managers, and these too can be rationally pursued. We build upon stakeholder theory and Weber's classic distinction between wertrationalitat and zweckrationalitat, adding to them the "new institutionalist" concept of the organization field (1983, 1991). Stakeholders employ a variety of direct and indirect mechanisms to rationalize relations with the firm. We discuss four: internal subunits, legislated stakeholder participation, legislated access to information, and direct stakeholder activism. These developments are blurring the distinction between the environment and the organization by importing the values and goals of external stakeholders into the internal organization. They are also precipitating a more structured set of relationships among the actors who comprise the field. To the extent that the zweckrationalitat values of managers and owners as well as the wertrationalitat concerns of stakeholders are met, the firm is more rational.
Offers a neofunctionalist theory of income inequality in which unequal income is functional because it is a product of institutions that make available to actors more & better information. The ...institutions are markets, hierarchies (organizations), & occupational licensing (professions). Markets facilitate human action & planning by informing buyers & sellers of relative prices, occupational licensing by signaling the presence of competence, & hierarchies by allowing managers to observe the quantity & quality of employee inputs. Derived from the work of Hayak & the study of information asymmetries, this theory combines some of the strengths of functional & conflict theory, while avoiding their weaknesses. It posits the functionality of norm-regulated pursuit of self-centralization of power in bureaucracies & professions. These are functional in that they enable actors to use information to increase well-being. Specifically these three institutions are functional insofar as markets produce more innovation than centralized planning, hierarchies are more productive than egalitarian cooperatives & small partnerships, & professional control of occupations is more conducive to consumer satisfaction than unrestricted entry into a particular occupation.
Increasing highway safety is a critical transportation policy priority. To further that goal, NHTSA released a set of model performance measures for state traffic records databases, although states ...are free to develop their own metrics. This paper presents the results of Kentucky’s program to develop metrics to measure the performance attributes of its traffic records databases (timeliness, accuracy, completeness, consistency and uniformity, integration, and accessibility). After a brief discussion of the complex nature of the traffic records database system, Kentucky’s performance measurement program is described. Differences across the databases in obtaining useful information are noted, and implications are identified for database improvements. The paper documents advances in data accuracy, timeliness, and completeness. Findings are then connected to the broader effort to improve traffic records databases, including the construction of effective traffic records strategic plans.
While previous research on human capital & income attainment finds that African Americans earn less than whites at each level of education, it has not controlled for quality of education. Here, ...results of a National Assessment of Educational Progress study of black-white literacy differences are used to estimate the effect of quality of education on black-white income differences. Separating human capital into two categories -- general skills & highest degree attained -- it is found that both explain income; adjusting for quality eliminates the white income advantage. Predictions derived from both the industrial society & group conflict models of income gap are tested, & results support the former. It is concluded that future research should use highest degree attained, not years of education, & should include a measure of skills.
This article applies the concepts of organization field and accountability environment to a government-funded program. It argues that the formula for accountability inspired by agency theory-define ...performance standards, measure performance, and sanction based on measured performance-is frequently impossible to apply because program accountability can be an emergent property arising from the actions of the major actors in a program's field. Studying a program reform of social service transportation in Kentucky, it illustrates the utility of conceptualizing accountability as an emergent property of the program's field. After the principle actors in this program field-the transportation broker, the state, the transportation provider (such as a taxi company), and the riders-established their roles, there was a decline in program cost per rider and a reduction in waste and fraud. The article concludes with implications for designing more accountable programs.
Increasingly, stakeholder groups (eg, environmentalists, minorities, consumers, & community residents) are pressuring large corporations to adopt their values & concerns, with some success. Discussed ...here are two emerging institutional structures that facilitate stakeholder participation in corporate affairs: (1) the creation of positions inside the corporation that represent stakeholder interests; & (2) the writing of laws at the behest of activists that give stakeholders a role in the enforcement of regulatory law. This is seen as a form of interorganizational rationalization in which stakeholders routinize distrust. A New Institutionalist perspective is employed to show that rationalization is a dialectical process that arises from the corporation's relationship to other organizations in its field. Activism in the field engenders a more proactive corporation. The growing capacity of stakeholders to rationalize the corporation's field opens up for analysis the extent to which rational mechanisms increase corporate accountability & stakeholder outcomes.
Paying for Infrastructure in an Urban Environment Yusuf, Juita-Elena (Wie); O'Connell, Lenahan; Anuar, Khairul A. ...
Transportation research record,
01/2015, Volume:
2530, Issue:
1
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
This study examines public preferences for two revenue options—fuel taxes and tolls—to finance transportation infrastructure in an urban area with the use of the results of a survey of residents of ...the Hampton Roads region of southeastern Virginia. Specifically, the study addresses two related research questions: (a) To what extent do residents support instituting tolls, increasing the fuel tax, or both? (b) What roles do self-interest and ideological beliefs play in support of increasing the fuel tax, imposing tolls, or doing both? The study finds that 50% of respondents expressed a willingness to support fuel taxes or tolls for infrastructure, 29% for increasing fuel taxes, and 28% for tolls, with 7% supporting both revenue options. The study also finds that the support for each funding source is associated with a different set of ideological beliefs and self-interest factors. Implications for generating public support for increases in revenue and funding for transportation facilities are discussed.
This paper explores possible connections between gender and the willingness to engage in unethical business behavior. Two approaches to gender and ethics are presented: the structural approach and ...the socialization approach. Data from a sample of 213 business school students reveal that men are more than two times as likely as women to engage in actions regarded as unethical but it is also important to note that relatively few would engage in any of these actions with the exception of buying stock with inside information. Fifty percent of the males were willing to buy stock with insider information. Overall, the results support the gender socialization approach.
The possibility is suggested of adding fixed-route transit service to many of the nation’s small cities and towns by using some of the money currently devoted to the provision of client-oriented ...demand-response transit to fund the new service. This can be done, this study finds, with very little additional expense and no loss of necessary demand-response service. The creation of small fixed routes is feasible, when the demand-response system is organized across a region by a brokerage (i.e., an organization paid on a capitated basis that assigns eligible riders to transportation providers). Research shows that both brokerages and fixed routes tend to lower Medicaid transportation costs. The thesis is that these two efficiency enhancers can be combined effectively in some of the nation’s small towns and cities, whenever capitated brokerages can provide the administrative apparatus and much of the funding for the fixed route. This thesis is illustrated with the results of a study conducted in a Kentucky city of 27,000. It found that a substantial number of those currently riding in demand-response vehicles to which they are assigned by a broker could be shifted to a proposed fixed route. The new route would be operated by the broker with funds from the capitation payments. The study’s findings suggest that capitated brokerages may create an opportunity for many of the nation’s smaller cities to obtain a fixed-route bus service at a modest, or perhaps at even no, additional cost.
