Policy and Productivity
The Nation as an Imagined Community and the State as Its Representative Organization: Understanding the Differences in ASEAN State Responses to China's Claim to Sovereignty over the South China Sea
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Benedict Edward DeDominicis
The neoclassical realist theoretical paradigm emphasizes the importance of analyzing the unique complexity of state polity composition to analyze international relations. ASEAN hedging strategies require that the analysis of the nature of these states themselves to adequately comprehend this behavior. Assuming them to be black boxes acting so-called rationally in response to the rise of China is not effective. Not all of them are so willing to hedge; Vietnam is much more resistant to Chinese claims in the South China Sea. Vietnam is a nation state, consequently it is more likely to perceive challenges and display nationalist motivations. In contesting China's territorial claim to the entire South China Sea, Vietnam has demonstrated notably assertive behavior. Media reports note that Vietnamese public opinion has manifested widespread support for closer relations with the US, despite the recent history of the Vietnam War. Vietnam's behavior stands in contrast to that of the Philippines, a longtime US ally. Under President Rodrigo Duterte, the Philippines has moved expeditiously to improve relations with China. Manila did so despite high profile coverage in the international media of China's physical assertion of its sovereignty over the Scarborough Shoal, which Manila claims as part its exclusive economic zone. A critical factor explaining this difference in foreign policy behavior is the fundamentally different nature of Vietnam as a nation state, while the Philippines and the other South China Sea littoral states are post-colonial, multiethnic states. Nation states demonstrate significantly different patterns of policy goal behavior than non-nation, multi-ethnic states.
Managerial Decision-making Policies in the National Health Service: Moving beyond Structures and Personas
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Polly Pascoe
Decision-making is a key aspect of any managerial role. This article reviews the numerous policy changes that have impacted the ways in which managers within the English National Health Service (NHS) are expected to make decisions. Following analysis, the author presents a two pronged model of policy changes to date and raises questions as to the effectiveness of continuing the attempt to improve management following this model. To conclude, a new approach to management improvement is suggested.
Charting How Different Policy Frames are Received by the Populace
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Bart Cunningham, Walter Lepore, James MacGregor
Megaprojects that potentially entail substantial economic gains but also enormous environmental risks, like the construction of a hydro-electric dam or the expansion of a pipeline to transport oil, put decision makers in the public sector under public scrutiny. This type of problem/situations/decisions in public sector policy making is called a "wicked problem," a term which was coined to define highly complex, uncertain and intractable societal issues that are ambiguously defined and highly resistant to resolution (Rittel, 1972). Wicked problems can be seen as “expressions of competing values and goals” (Norton, 2005: 133) where a variety of stakeholders, each with a particular notion of the issue at hand, try to influence and determine its definition and the nature of its resolution. Underlying the public debate over the decision to advance or not with a megaproject there is the way policymakers frame the problems. The lack of consensus on how a wicked problem is framed by actors with competing values and interests is indeed considered the most salient aspect of such public policy issues and the core of the theory defining them. This paper explores framing effect at collective/organizational level in real settings. We conduct a comparative case study of two recent megaprojects undertaken in Canada. The case study is conducted from a narrative approach using event-structure analysis (ESA) based on evidence collected from
Organizational Communication, Diversity and Job Satisfaction : What Roles Do Generational Differences Play?
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Catherine Nickerson, Payal Mehra
Despite receiving some attention in other contexts, the impact of inter-generational differences as an aspect of diversity in the workplace has not been widely investigated. In addition, while there have been many studies on job satisfaction and levels of attrition in workplace settings, very few have looked specifically at non-Western contexts such as India. The present study provides a comparison of the communication preferences reported within multi-generational organisations in India.The purpose of the research was to examine the influence of generation on job satisfaction, with specific reference to organizational communication. 400 managers working in public and private sector companies in India were surveyed to investigate the respondents’ choice of communication media, their satisfaction with the communication at their workplace, and the type of interactions that took place. It also measured the respondents’ job satisfaction. The study was inter-disciplinary in nature, drawing on accommodation theory and media richness theory, alongside the findings from empirical studies in other contexts that have looked specifically at inter-generational differences. We found that organizational communication was positively related to job satisfaction, and also that generational category moderated the relationship between these two factors. Gen Y managers were the least satisfied generation at work, and frequently used avoidance while communicating with older adults. Our conclusion is that job satisfaction may be enhanced by focusing on the development of a positive communication environment; at the same time, employees that belong to different generations may define what constitutes a positive communication environment in very different ways.
