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This study was conceived in the context of a project course on CSR instruments and modelled on a real case. The German Federal Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs (BMAS) had tendered a report that would provide an overview of the existing classification tools used to evaluate CSR performance. The report is part of the National Strategy on Corporate Social Responsibility, the CSR action plan of the German government.
The Federal Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs is the lead ministry responsible for implementing the National Strategy for Corporate Social Responsibility. The Action Plan for CSR was decided by the federal cabinet on October 6th, 2010. According to the Action Plan, CSR measures include a company’s contributions to voluntarily participate and include social responsibility into their business plan. The inclusion of a company’s key stakeholders is an integral part of CSR.
The goal was not only to provide an overview of the principle and international agreements but also to classify existing instruments from different stakeholders’ perspectives. For this, students analysed 58 CSR instruments for which they developed a diverse set of evaluation criteria. Moreover, they tested their assumptions about key stakeholders’ interests in a small workshop interviewing representatives of trade unions, chambers of commerce, consumer groups as well NGOs.
The result is a very impressive piece of work as it presents new insight in a largely under-researched field. The report was presented to the working group on evaluation of the federal CSR forum in Berlin on June 6th, 2012 where it received a lot of praise by the participants. I hope it will be used in the professional world.
This paper introduces an indicator framework, which allows for a valid and reliable assessment of the service quality of customer-focused government services. While defining service quality is a difficult task, also operationalising and measuring such an elusive concept can never be done perfectly due to a number of problems. Given the ‘soft’ nature of service quality, most prior research has focused on survey-based methods, which while being essential have serious flaws owed to this method’s inherent lack of reliability. Following suggestions by prior research in the field, this paper develops an assessment framework combining a ‘soft’ indicator based on a SERVQUAL survey with a set of ‘hard’ variables adding the reliability, which previous approaches lack.
The indicator was initially developed, tested and re-adjusted for measuring service quality in Berlin’s 40 Bürgerämter. However, it can be adapted in a way that it is applicable to most customer-based government services. The ‘soft’ part of this indicator was developed on the lines of five dimensions, scoring services according to their tangibles, reliability, responsiveness, assurance and empathy.
On the ‘hard’ dimension, we have picked a set of eleven variables, which unequivocally add/subtract from service quality, while having the advantage of being measured in a straightforward manner. While the operationalisation and weighting of these variables is open to academic and professional debate, we are confident to have followed a transparent and clearly comprehensible process. We acknowledge, however, that these variables will have to be adjusted when other services are being measured.
All in all, the developed Service Quality Indicator for Customer-Based Public Services (SQI) should be regarded as a starting point for a comprehensive and easily constructible framework to assess service quality in the good governance arena. We hope that this indicator framework will be perfected to the point that it can contribute to a better overall measurement and therefore improvement of government services.
My EMPM Master thesis focuses on changing governance structures in European research policy and the role the European Commission is playing in this context. In particular, it aims at investigating whether we currently witness the transition of the European Commission’s Directorate ‐ General for Research (and Innovation) into a European research ministry. In order to lay the ground for finding answers to this question, I first introduce the history of Community activities in the area of research and discuss the development of power relations between the different European players in the area. The concept of ”agencification” and its consequences for the work, status and self ‐ perception of the European Commission is looked at in particular depth. In the following analytical chapter I argue that this paradigm shift is indeed taking place and that, among others elements, the new position of research as ”shared competence” after the Lisbon Treaty, the relatively recent creation of two executive research agencies and strong leadership embodied in the person of the Commissioner for Research and Innovation have contributed decisively to the development. The thesis is based on the analysis of both relevant literature and theory as well as on semi ‐ structured interviews that I carried out with relevant stakeholders in Brussels, both from the European institutions and from concerned institutions, organizations, and associations, hence providing a sound mix of theoretical approaches and practical reflections.
Education is widely believed to be a key to the development of individuals and society. However, it is also clear that core global political commitments aiming at universality as included in the Millenium Development Goals and the right to education can only be achieved if policy efforts start addressing systematically disadvantaged parts of society. This is the topic of the present paper on sociodemographic barriers to equity in education in Nepal. So far, many policy efforts to enhance educational opportunities are based on a one dimensional assessments of the most disadvantage population groups. They assume, for instance, that girls are generally more disadvantaged than boys or that people living in rural areas are more disadvantaged than those living in urban areas. In her paper, Ann-Kathrin Scheuermann goes further and explore s which combinations of sociodemographic attributes impede equity in education in Nepal in terms of access to education and attainment. She is able to use unique data, the Nepal Living Standards Survey 2010/11 compiled by the World Bank and the Nepalese Central Bureau of Statistics as well as qualitative participatory assessments in the field. She finds that the most influential attributes established in the literature – wealth, geography and gender – do matter, but that culture specific group characteristics are at least as relevant. Poverty remains a major barrier to equity in education. The effect of geography is two dimensional, impeding equity in both rural and urban areas, but for different reasons. In rural areas disadvantages are related to infrastructural aspects, e.g. distance to the nearest school, whereas in urban areas income generation alternatives impede educational opportunities. Gender differences have decreased with regard to access over time, but girls remain disadvantaged when it comes to higher attainment. When looking at inequity regarding geography, gender and wealth jointly, poor boys (not girls!) in urban are among the most disadvantaged. These finding s have great policy -¬‐ relevance. In order to reach the most marginalized population groups policy analysis must go beyond a one dimensional analysis of attributes but look at them in combination. Moreover, socio -¬‐ cultural barriers related to caste, religion and disability can be highly impeding factors which need to be addressed explicitly when designing policies in Nepal. More generally, policies can be tailored more effectively by identifying the most marginalized population groups in order to improve their educational opportunities and achieve universal political commitments and true equity in education.
With the establishment of the Common Security and Defense Policy (CSDP) in 1999, the EU aimed to tackle challenges in the field of security by deploying various military, police, justice and rule of law missions in troubled crisis areas. The Lisbon Treaty put the instrument of CSDP Missions on a new height, putting it under the umbrella of the European External Action Service with the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs & Security Policy / Vice -President of the European Commission as their highest representative. CSDP Missions - while dealing with civilian crisis management in conflict and post- conflict countries - are operating in a highly political environment with demands and direction coming from the EU Member States, the EU institution s, the Host Nations and other international actors. Common values and norms applying to CSDP Missions are underdeveloped and not well communicated. Mandates are often not clearly defined. The work force is mainly seconded by the Member States and highly di verse in respect to culture, professional background and experience and language. Women are strongly underrepresented. Even though leadership is crucial in such a challenging environment, it has never been addressed within the CSDP structures until very recently. This thesis analysis the complexities of CSDP Missions and demands put on leadership in such an environment. Furthermore, it defines best practices and closes with recommendations on how the leadership culture in CSDP Missions can be improved. Results are generated by using literature analysis, interviews with key stakeholders, online questionnaires and the authors own work experience in a CSDP Mission. For CSDP Missions to become even more successful a stronger emphasis on the development of leadership culture seems appropriate. Starting from creating a leadership development strategy, defining standard guidelines and principals for recruitment and promotion of personnel, addressing the problem of gender imbalance, importance should be also put on defining a favored leadership style and common values. Future leaders should be skilled and experienced in working in a highly politicised environment leading and empowering a multi-cultural, diverse work force. With an effective leadership culture CSDP Missions will succeed in being a strong EU actor in civilian crisis management and helping to foster security and maintain peace in the world.
Critics argue that inflation targeting (IT) has met its demise in face of the current financial crisis. As such , p rice - level targeting and nominal gross domestic product (GDP) targeting have been proposed as alternatives, but to date no country has made the switch – why is this so? Existing literature tends to treat the choice of targeting regime as a function of economic theory, empirical precedents, and policy execution constraints. I find this analytical framework insufficient; otherwise, we should observe at least some countries exiting IT regimes in light of the arguments made thus far. In order to explain why governments have yet to make the switch away from IT, I propose that a fourth determinant needs to be added to the framework – politics. Based on this framework, I conclude that IT has yet to meet its demise.
Development aid is underperforming in terms of effectiveness due to donor diversification, proliferation and fragmentation. The re quest for more harmonized and collectively effective actions formulated in the High-Leve l Fora on aid effectiveness have gained sup- port across donor and recipient countries. However, commitment has not been successfully translated into significant changes on the ground. This gap between policy and country level practices needs to be addressed to make development assistance more effective. A first formal partnership of Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ), Agence Française de Développement (AFD) and Lux-Development (LuxDev) has been established in the sector of technical vocational education and training. To assess this partnership and to identify areas for improvement, the study addresses the following research question: Under which conditions do implementing agencies in international development cooperation enter into, develop and sustain inter-organizational collaboration? The dimensions of the collaboration process are at the center of the analysis. The study develops a theoretical framework that consists of criteria to assess collaboration efforts of the agencies in four selected countries nd identifies weaknesses in the structural, the agency, and the social capital dimension. Structural aspects include common visions, shares power arrangements and commitment of the recipient country. Shared personal opinions, alignment of procedures and information exchange helps reconciling individual and collective interests. The analysis of the social capital dimension shows that mutual interaction, reciprocity and trust-building are crucial to successfully build social relationships which form the basis of any collaboration process. A set of nine recommendations are proposed to address the shortcomings in each of the three dimensions of the collaboration process to improve the partnership of the three agencies. To address the structural blocking factors, the agencies should evaluate their collaboration efforts, create a coordinating body and speak to the recipient country’s government with one voice. To manage the tension between individual and collective interests, regular discussions with everyone involved and knowledge about the tools, procedures and implementing mechanisms of the collaboration partners are crucial. To better meet the criteria of the social capital dimension, the agencies should appoint boundary-spanners and create opportunities to learn about their collaboration partners’ culture.
Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD) is often portrayed as a policy that will mitigate climate change whilst fostering social and environmental improvements in the most isolated and under-developed regions of the world. Our work sets out to assess this cl aim by evaluating whether REDD is effectively designed as an instrument that is suitable for generating local development in forest regions. After revealing the underlying governance rationale through which REDD is expected to generate positive outcomes on the global and local levels, we develop a framework to assess whether the REDD strategies developed through the FCPF and the UN-REDD Readiness initiatives are putting in place the policy environment that is necessary for REDD to function as a development mechanism. Through the comparative analysis of six national Readiness strategies from the Latin American region, we reveal that policies designed under Readiness systematically pay more attention to the development of baseline emissions scenarios and MRV systems than to the establishment of the policy conditions that must be in place for REDD to generate local development. Our analysis suggests that a number of policy design elements might be resulting in the failure of national REDD strategies to address underlying governance problems. The phased approach to Readiness creates incentives for governments to rush through the institutional reform stages, and REDD’s current design only rewards quantifiable GHG emissions reductions, providing few incentives for countries to invest in social and environmental improvements. Furthermore, the reliance on carbon market finance and the operational structure of the FCPF may also result in overinvestments in MRV systems to the detriment of more complex institutional reforms. We conclude by presenting a set of recommendations for reforming the underlying governance logic of REDD in order to enhance its potential as a local development mechanism.
Corruption has an impact. It is about time that anticorruption starts having an impact, too.
This is the first annual policy report of the European Seventh Framework Research Project ANTICORRP, which has started in 2012 and will continue until 2018. Based on the work of 21 different research centers and universities gathering original data, ANTICORRP offers yearly updates on the latest from corruption research, analyzing both the consequences of corruption and the impact of policies attempting to curb it.
This first report offers a methodology to evaluate corruption risk and quality of government at country, region and sector level by means of corruption indicators that are sensitive to change and policy intervention. The aim of the project is to offer testable, easy to handle policies which reduce corruption risk.
Corruption distorts market competition, bolsters deficits on behalf of discretionary spending, hurts real investment in public health and education, reduces tax collection, detriments the absorption rate of EU funds, and generates vulnerable employment and brain drain. This study estimates that if EU member states would all manage to control corruption at the Danish level, tax collection in Europe would increase by 323 billion Euro per year – double of the EU budget for 2013.
In a comprehensive empirical investigation (N = 71,405) we analyzed the development of legal expertise in a critical 1-year period of academic legal training in which advanced law students start practicing to solve complex cases. We were particularly interested in the functional form of the learning curve and inter-individual differences in learning. Performance increases monotonically with the number of practice exams following a slightly concave learning curve without any considerable kinks. Considering the performance development over time, however, the curve is not monotonic and shows intermediate drops in performance. We provide evidence which suggests that these drops are due to cyclic drops in motivation. There are about equally sized marginal effects of practicing law exams in general and practicing exams in the specific area of law. However, students with high (vs. low) initial performance profit more from practicing exams within a specific area of law whereas students with low initial performance profit more from practicing exams in general. The concave increase in performance with the number of practicing exams is mainly driven by individuals with low initial performance. Those with high initial performance mainly display a linear learning trend. We discuss the practical implications of these findings for academic legal training.
We run a large-scale natural field experiment to evaluate alternative strategies to enforce compliance with the law. The experiment varies the text of mailings sent to potential evaders of TV license fees. We find a strong effect of mailings, leading to a substantial increase in compliance. Among different mailings, a threat treatment which makes a high detection risk salient has a significant deterrent effect. Neither appealing to morals nor imparting information about others’ behavior enhances compliance on aggregate. However, the information condition has a weak positive effect in municipalities where evasion is believed to be common.
This study illustrates how entrepreneurship may catalyze prosperity as well as peace in entrenched poverty–conflict zones. We bring to life a conceptualization of transformative entrepreneuring by assessing interrelationships between poverty and conflict indicators from the perspective of rural dwellers in Rwanda's entrepreneurial coffee sector. Our findings suggest that individuals' perceptions of poverty alleviation and conflict reduction are sequentially linked, notably via increased quality of life. This enables us to advance theory on entrepreneuring by unpacking the mechanisms through which entrepreneurial processes may transform the lives of such ‘ordinary’ entrepreneurs in settings where economic and social value creation are desperately needed.