Hertie School Research Repository
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Time to move on: The discussion about EMU deepening needs to change
No full textThe crisis generated by the Covid-19 pandemic has required rapid and strong action. It also entails key choices, including on how the EU could help mitigate the impact of Covid-19, foster the economic recovery and support the dual green and digital transitions. In September 2019, before the crisis, the Directorate General for Economy and Finance of the European Commission organised a workshop on strengthening the institutional architecture of the EMU. This eBook presents the main ideas discussed at the workshop
Europe to the rescEU: The missing piece in EU migration management is civil protection
No full textThere is more than one solution to complex problems. While the EU struggles to solve the debate on asylum responsibility-sharing, Marie Walter-Franke proposes that rescEU, the European civil protection reserve, could become a complementary tool to face migration-related emergencies. Civil protection is a policy on the rise by which the EU provides tangible solidarity in crisis situations. After weighing the potential and limitations of using rescEU in the context of migration, Marie outlines three scenarios: (1) what can be done under the status quo; (2) how activation procedures could be streamlined; and (3) establishing a rescEU agency
Big data to the rescue? Challenges in analysing granular household electricity consumption in the United Kingdom
No full textRapid growth in smart meter installations has given rise to vast collections of data at a high time-resolution and down to an individual level. However, to enable efficient policy interventions, we need to be able to appropriately segment the population of users. The aim of this paper is to consider challenges and opportunities associated with large highly-granular temporal datasets that describe residential electricity consumption. In particular, the focus is on experiments relating to aggregation of smart meter time-series data in the context of clustering and prediction tasks that are often used for customer targeting and to gain insight on energy-use about sub populations. To cluster energy use profiles, we propose a novel framework based on a set of Gaussian based models which we use to encode individuals’ energy consumption over time. The dataset consists of half hourly electricity consumption records from smart meters of households in the UK (2014–2015). The contribution of this paper comes from its investigation of how consumers or groups may be clustered according to model parameters in scenarios where additional data on consumers is not available to the researcher, or where anonymity preservation of the smart meter user is prioritised. A secondary aim is to invite greater awareness when data reduction is required to reduce the size of a large dataset for computational purposes. This may have implications for policy interventions acting at the individual or small group level, for instance, when designing incentives to encourage energy efficient behaviour or when identifying fuel poor customers
Activists as moral entrepreneurs: How shareholder activists brought active ownership to Switzerland
No full textAction from activists is at the origin of many initiatives that end up injecting moral concerns into the way companies operate. In such instances, activists function as moral entrepreneurs that lastingly change the definition of what constitutes morally acceptable corporate behavior. Yet, in order to have such a lasting effect on companies, activist efforts need to pass through multiple stages that deal with both the effective mobilization of their own constituents and the triggering of corporate responses that can induce broader change in the economy. In the present chapter, the authors study how local shareholder activists initiated and helped sustain the process that led to the establishment of active ownership in Switzerland between 1997 and 2011. Active ownership refers to the active engagement of shareholders with firms to push them toward considering environmental, social, and corporate governance criteria in their decision-making. The case illustrates the processual nature of moralizing dynamics initiated by activists and emphasizes the long-term and cumulative nature of many moralization projects
Theorization as institutional work: The dynamics of roles and practices
No full textThis study unpacks the construct of theorization – the process by which organizational ideas become delocalized and abstracted into theoretical models to support their diffusion across time and space. We adopt an institutional work lens to analyse the key components of theorization in contexts where institutional work is in transition from changing institutions to maintaining them. We build on a longitudinal inductive study of theorization by the Fair Labor Association – a private regulatory initiative that created and then enforced a code of conduct for working conditions in apparel factories. Our study reveals that when institutional work shifts from changing to maintaining an institutional arrangement of corporate social responsibility, there is a key change in how the Fair Labor Association theorizes roles and practices related to this arrangement. We observe that theorization on key practices largely remains intact, whereas the roles of different actors are theorized in a dramatically different manner. Our findings contribute to a better understanding of the work involved in the aftermath of radical change by demonstrating the relative plasticity of roles over the rigidity of practices
Advancing the business & human rights agenda: Dialogue, empowerment and constructive engagement
No full textAs corporations are going global, they are increasingly confronted with human rights challenges. As such, new ways to deal with human rights challenges in corporate operations must be developed as traditional governance mechanisms are not always able to tackle them. This article presents five different views on innovative solutions for the relationships between business and human rights that all build on empowerment, dialogue and constructive engagement. The different approaches highlight an emerging trend toward a more active role for corporations in the protection of human rights. The first examines the need for enhanced dialogue between corporations and their stakeholders. The next three each examine a different facet of empowerment, a critical factor for the respect and protection of human rights: empowerment of the poor, of communities, and of consumers. The final one presents a case study of constructive corporate engagement in Myanmar (Burma). Altogether, these research projects provide insight into the complex relationships between corporate operations and human rights, by highlighting the importance of stakeholder dialogue and empowerment. All the five projects were presented during the Second Swiss Master Class in Corporate Social Responsibility, held in Lausanne, Switzerland on December 12, 2008. The audience for this conference, which examined business and human rights, was composed of researchers, governmental representatives, and business and non-governmental organization practitioners
Research for AGRI Committee – Possible impact of Brexit on the EU budget and, in particular, CAP funding, European Parliament, Policy Department for Structural and Cohesion Policies, Brussels
No full textThis note assesses possible consequences of Brexit for the EU budget and the Common Agricultural Policy. It discusses the importance of the ‘Brexitbill’ and the loss of the British net contribution. Furthermore, it describes how the EU budget and spending on the Common Agricultural Policy can be adjusted to the new situation and estimates how the different options would affect EU Member States and their net balances
Let’s Talk about Problems: Advancing Research on Hybrid Organizing, Social Enterprises, and Institutional Context
No full textSocial enterprises have long been considered ideal settings for studying hybrid organizing due to their combination of social and economic goals and activities. In this chapter, the authors argue that the current research focus on hybrid organizing foregrounds the paradox, conflicting logics, and multiple identities associated with the pursuit of multiple goals but underappreciates the relationship between hybrid organizing and its institutional context. Recognizing that the primary objective of social enterprises is to tackle social problems, the authors introduce the social problem domain as an analytically useful and theoretically interesting meso-level to examine the role of context for hybrid organizing and to advance conversations on hybridity in organizational theory. Social problem domains offer insights into the political, cultural, and material differences in how various societies deal with social problems, which in turn affects hybrid organizing. The authors provide empirical insights derived from an analysis of social enterprises across three countries and social problem domains. The authors show how the institutional arrangements of social enterprises differ considerably across contexts, and how these arrangements affect how social enterprises become more or less similar compared to traditional ways of organizing in these problem domains. Based on these findings, the authors outline a research agenda on social enterprises that focuses on examining the nature, antecedents, and outcomes of hybrid organizing around social problems across multiple levels of analysis. With this chapter, the authors move the focus of social enterprise research in organizational theory from studying how these organizations cope with multiple logics and goals toward studying how they engage in markets for public purpose
