Regulation and Governance
Transparency and Practices for Ethical Decision: The Brazilian Development Bank Case
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Luciano Quinto Lanz
The Brazilian Development Bank (BNDES) is facing a massive investigation of Brazilian government supervisory bodies and prosecutors focused on operations during the administration of the Workers' Party from 2003 to 2016. This article, a single case study, analyzes the improvements in the BNDES governance until 2018. The methodology used is based on a qualitative analysis of news, press releases, information available on the BNDES website, analysis of practices, internal documents and semi-structured interviews with bank employees. Other governance and transparency practices of the National Development Banks (NDBs) are used as a reference for this analysis, which uses the third-order reflection process. The theoretical framework includes silences and absences in organization stories and discourse, ethical reputation building in corrupt environments, bounded awareness and its implication for ethical decision making. The results showed that the BNDES established an adequate internal decision-making process, based on norms and collegiate decisions, with performance similar to the benchmark in transparency. However, the process used to establish and transform public policy into actions, guidelines, and priorities needs to be improved to avoid potential conflict of interest and suspicions of influence and favoring of private corporations. Internal analytical practices may also benefit from a review to incorporate best ethical decision-making practices.
Transparency versus Privacy Rights : An Analysis of Public Organization Practices
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Renata Tauil Martins Lanz, Luciano Quinto Lanz
Public organizations face important challenges regarding information access. The legal and regulatory environment is changing rapidly and constantly. However, the direction is not clear. There is an increased pressure for transparency, open data and information access. On the other hand, there is the right to privacy, the right to be forgotten, commercial and banking secrecies. This study analyzes how Brazilian public organizations are dealing with this situation. The methodology used is a multiple case study, based on secondary data available on organization websites, analysis of press releases, news and reports. The theoretical framework includes a comparison between the legal and regulatory environment in Brazil and other countries. The results showed that public organizations have different approaches and different degrees of transparency, based on their maturity, sector and pressures from the society. Using these results, we proposed a theoretical framework to perform the same analysis on other countries. Some opportunities for additional research include extending this study to non-governmental organizations, including private firms and civil society associations.
Multi-Level Analysis of the Effect of a Strategic Orientation on Performance and the Elements of Organizational Capability
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Yosuke Kanno, Satoshi Shibata
The purpose of this study is to quantify the circumstances whereby a strategic orientation affects its performance. Prior research has shown how an organization’s orientation affects the firm’s financial performance and innovation. However, while we know that this effect varies with the circumstances, we do not know which factors affect each firm and by how much. Because the effect of a strategic orientation on its performance varies with the firm’s specific circumstances, this study will clarify the type of effect that a strategic orientation will have on its capabilities or environment due to such differences. In addition, to resolve this issue, we administered an online questionnaire survey to employees of manufacturing firms listed on the first section of the Tokyo Stock Exchange in Japan. We received responses from 2,226 employees at 391 companies, and our study used these as its sample in the quantitative analysis.
