Showing papers on "Delegation published in 2011"

Linking Customer Interaction and Innovation: The Mediating Role of New Organizational Practices

Abstract: The notion that firms can improve their innovativeness by tapping users and customers for knowledge has become prominent in innovation studies. Similar arguments have been made in the marketing literature. We argue that neither literatures take sufficient account of firm organization. Specifically, firms that attempt to leverage user and customer knowledge in the context of innovation must design an internal organization appropriate to support it. This can be achieved in particular through the use of new organizational practices, notably, intensive vertical and lateral communication, rewarding employees for sharing and acquiring knowledge, and high levels of delegation of decision rights. In this paper, six hypotheses were developed and tested on a data set of 169 Danish firms drawn from a 2001 survey of the 1,000 largest firms in Denmark. A key result is that the link from customer knowledge to innovation is completely mediated by organizational practices.

Relationship-based access control: protection model and policy language

Abstract: Social Network Systems pioneer a paradigm of access control that is distinct from traditional approaches to access control. Gates coined the term Relationship-Based Access Control (ReBAC) to refer to this paradigm. ReBAC is characterized by the explicit tracking of interpersonal relationships between users, and the expression of access control policies in terms of these relationships. This work explores what it takes to widen the applicability of ReBAC to application domains other than social computing. To this end, we formulate an archetypical ReBAC model to capture the essence of the paradigm, that is, authorization decisions are based on the relationship between the resource owner and the resource accessor in a social network maintained by the protection system. A novelty of the model is that it captures the contextual nature of relationships. We devise a policy language, based on modal logic, for composing access control policies that support delegation of trust. We use a case study in the domain of Electronic Health Records to demonstrate the utility of our model and its policy language. This work provides initial evidence to the feasibility and utility of ReBAC as a general-purpose paradigm of access control.

Shifting the Blame: On Delegation and Responsibility

Abstract: To fully understand the motives for delegating a decision right, it is important to study responsibility attributions for outcomes of delegated decisions. We conducted laboratory experiments in which subjects could either choose a fair allocation or an unfair allocation or delegate the choice, and we used a punishment option to elicit responsibility attributions. Our results show that, first, responsibility attribution can be effectively shifted and, second, this can constitute a strong motive for the delegation of a decision right. Moreover, we propose a simple measure of responsibility and show that this measure outperforms measures based on inequity aversion or reciprocity in predicting punishment behavior.

Parliaments and Coalitions: The Role of Legislative Institutions in Multiparty Governance

Abstract: 1. Introduction 2. Coalition Governance and Delegation 2.A Appendix 3. Parliaments as Policing Institutions 4. Coalitions and Legislative Activity 5. Strong Legislative Institutions 5.A Appendix 6. Weak Legislative Institutions 6.A Appendix 7. Conclusion Bibliography Index

Practical delegation of computation using multiple servers

Abstract: The current move to Cloud Computing raises the need for verifiable delegation of computations, where a weak client delegates his computation to a powerful server, while maintaining the ability to verify that the result is correct. Although there are prior solutions to this problem, none of them is yet both general and practical for real-world use. We demonstrate a relatively efficient and general solution where the client delegates the computation to several servers, and is guaranteed to determine the correct answer as long as even a single server is honest. We show: A protocol for any efficiently computable function, with logarithmically many rounds, based on any collision-resistant hash family. The protocol is set in terms of Turing Machines but can be adapted to other computation models. An adaptation of the protocol for the X86 computation model and a prototype implementation, called Quin, for Windows executables. We describe the architecture of Quin and experiment with several parameters on live clouds. We show that the protocol is practical, can work with nowadays clouds, and is efficient both for the servers and for the client.

Memory delegation

Abstract: We consider the problem of delegating computation, where the delegator doesn't even know the input to the function being delegated, and runs in time significantly smaller than the input length. For example, consider the setting of memory delegation, where a delegator wishes to delegate her entire memory to the cloud. The delegator may want the cloud to compute functions on this memory, and prove that the functions were computed correctly. As another example, consider the setting of streaming delegation, where a stream of data goes by, and a delegator, who cannot store this data, delegates this task to the cloud. Later the delegator may ask the cloud to compute statistics on this streaming data, and prove the correctness of the computation. We note that in both settings the delegator must keep a (short) certificate of the data being delegated, in order to later verify the correctness of the computations. Moreover, in the streaming setting, this certificate should be computed in a streaming manner. We construct both memory and streaming delegation schemes. We present non-interactive constructions based on the (standard) delegation scheme of Goldwasswer et. al. [GKR08]. These schemes allow the delegation of any function computable by an L-uniform circuit of low depth (the complexity of the delegator depends linearly on the depth). For memory delegation, we rely on the existence of a polylog PIR scheme, and for streaming, we rely on the existence of a fully homomorphic encryption scheme. We also present constructions based on the CS-proofs of Micali. These schemes allow the delegation of any function in P. However, they are interactive (i.e., consists of 4 messages), or are non-interactive in the Random Oracle Model.

An Experimental Investigation of Electoral Delegation and the Provision of Public Goods

Abstract: How effectively do democratic institutions provide public goods? Despite the incentives an elected leader has to free ride or impose majority tyranny, our experiment demonstrates that electoral delegation results in full provision of the public good. Analysis of the experimental data suggests that the result is primarily due to electoral selection: groups elect prosocial leaders and replace those who do not implement full contribution outcomes. However, we also observe outcomes in which a minimum winning coalition exploits the contributions of the remaining players. A second experiment demonstrates that when electoral delegation must be endogenously implemented, individuals voluntarily cede authority to an elected agent only when preplay communication is permitted. Our combined results demonstrate that democratic delegation helps groups overcome the free-rider problem and generally leads to outcomes that are often both efficient and equitable.

Constitutional moments in governing science and technology.

Abstract: Scholars in science and technology studies (STS) have recently been called upon to advise governments on the design of procedures for public engagement. Any such instrumental function should be carried out consistently with STS's interpretive and normative obligations as a social science discipline. This article illustrates how such threefold integration can be achieved by reviewing current US participatory politics against a 70-year backdrop of tacit constitutional developments in governing science and technology. Two broad cycles of constitutional adjustment are discerned: the first enlarging the scope of state action as well as public participation, with liberalized rules of access and sympathetic judicial review; the second cutting back on the role of the state, fostering the rise of an academic-industrial complex for technology transfer, and privatizing value debates through increasing delegation to professional ethicists. New rules for public engagement in the United Sates should take account of these historical developments and seek to counteract some of the anti-democratic tendencies observable in recent decades.

Principal–agent theory and the World Trade Organization: Complex agency and ‘missing delegation’

Abstract: This article analyses the World Trade Organization within a principal–agent framework. The concept of complex agent is introduced to focus on the variety of actors that comprise an international organization. Special attention is paid to the relationship between contracting parties’ representatives and the Secretariat. In the empirical part, the article analyses the role of the Secretariat in assisting negotiations and presents evidence of declining influence. It is shown how principal–agent theory can contribute to addressing this puzzle of ‘missing delegation’. The article concludes with a cautionary note as to the ‘location’ of international organizations’ emerging pathologies and calls for additional research to address the relationship between material and social sources to explain behaviour of the key actors within the complex agency.

The creation of European regulatory agencies and its limits: a comparative analysis of European delegation

Abstract: Agency creation at the European Union (EU) level differs from that at the national one. European regulatory agencies (ERAs) have limited formal powers and separation from other actors, resembling networks rather than stand-alone agencies. ERAs for economic regulation have been created later and in smaller numbers than for social regulation. Using a historical rational analysis, this paper argues that past delegations to other non-majoritarian institutions at the EU and national levels condition the creation of European agencies. The Commission has defended its existing role and powers, accepting ERAs when they aid its strategy to increase its own reach and ensuring that it has many controls over them. When member states have created independent regulatory agencies (IRAs), those IRAs have defended their autonomy and resisted strong ERAs. Formalized EU networks of IRAs have hindered the establishment of powerful ERAs and when created, ERAs have involved layering and conversion of those networks. Hence forma...

Legitimacy, Adaptation and Resilience in Ecosystem Management

Abstract: Ecologists have made great strides in developing criteria for describing the resilience of an ecological system. In addition, expansion of that effort to social-ecological systems has begun the process of identifying changes to the social system necessary to foster resilience in an ecological system such as the use of adaptive management and integrated ecosystem management. However, these changes to governance needed to foster ecosystem resilience will not be adopted by democratic societies without careful attention to their effect on the social system itself. Delegation of increased flexibility for adaptive management to resource management agencies must include careful attention to assuring that increased flexibility is exercised in a manner that is legitimate and responsive to the social system. Similarly, democratic systems proceed in incremental steps and are not likely to adopt wholesale changes to achieve integrated ecosystem management. This paper uses the concept of legitimacy in governance as a necessary component of any change to achieve greater social-ecological resilience and will turn to network theory as a means to facilitate legitimacy across multiple jurisdictions.

Trade and Public Health: The WTO, Tobacco, Alcohol, and Diet

Abstract: 1. Intersections between trade and non-communicable disease 2. Normative integration: using health instruments in interpretation of the WTO covered agreements 3. Freedom to use taxes, subsidies and restrictions on marketing 4. Necessity and regulatory autonomy under the GATT 5. Product regulation and labeling measures under the SPS and TBT agreements 6. Reallocating authority at the international level: delegation, legalisation and harmonisation 7. Conclusion.

Trust decision-making in multi-agent systems

Abstract: Trust is crucial in dynamic multi-agent systems, where agents may frequently join and leave, and the structure of the society may often change. In these environments, it may be difficult for agents to form stable trust relationships necessary for confident interactions. Societies may break down when trust between agents is too low to motivate interactions. In such settings, agents should make decisions about who to interact with, given their degree of trust in the available partners. We propose a decision-theoretic model of trust decision making allows controls to be used, as well as trust, to increase confidence in initial interactions. We consider explicit incentives, monitoring and reputation as examples of such controls. We evaluate our approach within a simulated, highly-dynamic multi-agent environment, and show how this model supports the making of delegation decisions when trust is low.

Coalition agreement and party mandate: How coalition agreements constrain the ministers

Abstract: In coalition government, the relationship between parties and ministers is one of double delegation: from the party to the minister and from the coalition of parties to the individual minister. On the basis of principal—agent theory, I argue that a coalition agreement is a tool used by coalition parties to reduce agency loss when delegating to ministers. In six governments in Belgium, Italy and The Netherlands, I show that: a majority of the pledges were transferred into cabinet decisions, a majority of cabinet decisions were effectively constrained by the coalition agreement and that one-third of cabinet decisions had been precisely defined beforehand in the document. Interestingly, the length of the coalition agreement, the entry of party leaders to government and the number of ministers participating in the negotiations do not seem to have had a significant influence on the above two measurements.

Good neighbours or distant friends? Trust between Dutch ministries and their executive agencies

Abstract: Agencification has extended and intensified the delegation problem. It has created new (administrative) principals, who are confronted with even more uncertainty as agents operate at arm's length. Trust is suggested as a new mode of governance. Based on the literature seven hypotheses are deduced on conditions that politicians can use to build trust: autonomy; contacts; policy involvement; and involvement in the design of monitoring devices. These hypotheses are tested using survey data on 219 Dutch executive agencies. Contrary to the expectations, executive agencies with low degrees of autonomy have a more trusting relationship with their parent ministry than agencies with high autonomy. Proximity and frequent interactions appear more important to trust than autonomy. Monitoring is not always perceived as a sign of distrust. These findings raise new questions on how principals can reduce the delegation problem and control executive agencies.

Bini Smaghi vs. the Parties: Representative government and institutional constraints

Abstract: Although it is generally seen as desirable that parties in government are both responsive and responsible, these two characteristics are now in increasing tension with one another. Prudence and consistency in government, as well as accountability, requires that governments conform to external constraints and past legacies, and not just answer to public opinion, and while these external constraints and legacies have grown in weight in recent years, public opinion, in its turn, has become harder and harder for governments to read and process. Meanwhile, because of changes in their organizations and in their relationship with civil society, parties in government are no longer in a position to bridge or ‘manage’ this gap, or even to persuade voters to accept it as a necessary element in political life. This problem is illustrated by extensive reference to the current fiscal crisis in Ireland, and is also used to question some of the assumptions that are involved in principal-agent treatments of the parliamentary chain of delegation.

Ensuring access control in cloud provisioned healthcare systems

Abstract: An important issues in cloud provisioned multi-tenant healthcare systems is the access control, which focuses on the protection of information against unauthorized access. As different tenants including hospitals, clinics, insurance companies, and pharmacies access the system, sensitive information should be provided only to authorized users and tenants. In this paper, we analyze the requirements of access control for healthcare multi-tenant cloud systems and propose to adapt Task-Role Based Access Control with constraints such as least privilege, separation of duty, delegation of tasks, and spatial and temporal access.

The Future of Diplomacy: Changing Practices, Evolving Relationships

Abstract: As we enter the 21st century, everybody seems to agree that diplomacy is changing and yet few people can specify exactly how or where it is heading. Since its very inception, International Journal has been a key forum for such discussions. A 1998 exchange between Paul Sharp and Andrew Cooper, for example, gave new scholarly prominence to the ways in which, and degrees to which, state-to-state diplomacy was being challenged by new actors.1 This has remained a core question in debates about the changing faces of diplomacy ever since. In this issue of IJ, we seek to contribute to the search for emerging patterns in diplomatic practices. Instead of focusing solely on new actors, however, we cast a wider net and locate both traditional and nontraditional diplomatic agents as part of an evolving configuration of social relations. Overall, the picture we draw shows an intriguing combination of the "gentlemanly diplomacy" inherited from a state-centric world with various heterodox forms of political intercourse made possible by globalization. In the changing diplomatic landscape, we argue, old and new practices coexist in a mutually constitutive relationship.As innovative relationships develop among an increasingly heterogeneous cast of diplomatic actors, the nature and function of diplomacy also evolves. Of course, today's diplomacy, just like yesterday's, remains primarily concerned with the ways in which states deal with the external world. But emerging practices also indicate efforts on the part of states to enrol various nonstate actors, just as nontraditional agents seek to act globally through the state's diplomatic outreach. Observe, for instance, how foreign ministries have bankrolled historically nondiplomatic practices such as development and disaster relief, and how nontraditional agents use public resources toward their ends. As soon as one scratches a little, in fact, examples of new forms of diplomatic relations abound. Globalization and increased interdependencies have caused line ministries to interact directly with their counterparts in other countries, thereby challenging the position of foreign affairs ministries. In multilateral settings, the practice of diplomacy is being reshaped by recent changes in the global distribution of power, often in unexpected ways. Nongovernmental organizations have become more visible in world politics through delegation and indirect rule, thereby opening new state-society interfaces at the global level. All the while, military professionals have developed new practices for mediating and interacting with a broader set of actors. With the current trend toward the legalization of world politics, lawyers have become central diplomatic actors in their own right, providing authoritative interpretations of other actors' room for maneuver. Religious actors are often powerful by virtue of the capacity to mobilize transnational constituencies. Economists, for their part, shape diplomatic practice through claims of expertise that go far beyond the technical details of economic governance.In this introduction, we specify two main areas in which diplomacy is changing as a result of these evolving social patterns. First, we look at the relationship between representation and governance: if anything, diplomatic work is traditionally about representing a polity vis-a-vis a recognized other. To the extent that such representation now increasingly includes partaking in governing, however, a whole array of questions about the relationship between diplomats and other actors emerges. Most prominently, are the governing and representing functions compatible in practice, or do they contain inherent tensions? Second, we focus on the territorial-nonterritorial character of the relation between the actors who perform diplomatic work and the constituencies on whose behalf they act and from which they claim authority. Bunding on these distinctions, contributors to this issue use their empirical findings to reflect not only on the evolution of diplomacy, but also on broader debates on the changes in world politics. …

Invisible and unaccountable? National Representatives and Council Officials in EU foreign policy

Abstract: The role of officials from the working groups and the Council Secretariat dealing with European Union (EU) external relations has grown in recent years as a result of the increase in the thematic and geographic scope of EU foreign policy and, in particular, the development of the EU's capabilities in crisis management. The increase in competences of Brussels-based bodies has occurred in parallel to a transformation of the policy-making process that challenges intergovernmentalist assumptions about the extent of the control exercised by the member states over foreign policy-making. This contribution tracks the impact of Brusselization and socialization processes on Council officials and national representatives, which has resulted in these actors playing a role beyond that foreseen in the original delegation mandate. This inevitably raises questions of accountability in EU foreign policy.

Information, commitment and consensus: a comparison of three perspectives on delegation in the European Union

Abstract: Three perspectives on delegation in the European Union are presented in this article. The transaction-costs perspective focuses on information asymmetries between policy makers and implementers. According to the commitment perspective, policy makers delegate authority as a solution to commitment problems. The consensus-building perspective views the decision to delegate as a trade-off between decisiveness and inclusiveness during the bargaining process. Hypotheses are derived from these perspectives regarding the amount of delegation to both the European Commission and to member states in legislation. From detailed information on eighty-six EU laws, there is some evidence for the transaction-costs perspective as an explanation of delegation to the Commission. With respect to delegation to member states, there is some evidence for both the transaction-costs perspective and the consensus-building perspective.

Efficient and Secure Delegation of Linear Algebra.

Abstract: We consider secure delegation of linear algebra computation, wherein a client, privately and verifiably, outsources tasks such as matrix multiplication, matrix inversion, computing the rank and determinant, and solving a linear system to a remote worker. When operating on n×n matrices, we design non-interactive, and secure protocols for delegating matrix multiplication, based on a number of encryption schemes with limited homomorphic properties where the client only needs to perform O(n) work. The main component of these delegation protocols is a mechanism for efficiently verifying the homomorphic matrix multiplication performed by the worker. We introduce a general method for performing this verification, for any homomorphic encryption scheme that satisfies two special properties. We then show that most existing homomorphic encryption schemes satisfy these properties and hence can utilize our general verification method. In case of the BGN-style encryption of [Gentry et al., EUROCRYPT 2010], we also show a simpler and more efficient verification method that does not follow our general approach. Finally, we show constant round and efficient constructions for secure delegation of other linear algebra tasks based on our delegation protocol for matrix multiplication. In all of these constructions, the client’s work is at most O(n log n). Our constructions can also be efficiently transformed to server-aided protocols for secure two-party computation of linear algebra with similar efficiency.

Delegation and Accountability

Abstract: Critics of legislative delegation to the bureaucracy worry that delegation undermines the accountability of politicians to voters. This article provides microfoundations for such concerns by examining a model of electoral agency in which legislators can either determine policy directly or delegate policymaking authority to an expert bureaucrat. In our model, when deciding whether to delegate, a politician must consider not only the policy consequences of his delegation decision but also the electoral consequences. We identify conditions under which delegation can provide politicians with an element of plausible deniability which they lack when they determine policy directly. In some circumstances, therefore, voters can be better off when legislators’ ability to delegate is restricted.

VIP delegation: Enabling VIPs to offload data in wireless social mobile networks

Abstract: We propose the use of opportunistic delegation as a data traffic offload solution to the recent boost up of mobile data consumption in metropolitan areas, by investigating two main questions: (i) “How to gain insights into social mobile networking scenarios?” and (ii) “How to utilize such insights to design solutions to alleviate overloaded 3G networks?”. The purpose of our solution is to leverage usage of mobile applications requiring large data transfers by channeling the traffic to a few, socially selected important users in the network called VIP delegates. The proposed VIP selection strategies are based on social network properties and are compared to the optimal solution (that covers 100% of users with minimum number of VIPs). Our extensive experiments with real and synthetic traces show the effectiveness of VIP delegation both in terms of coverage and required number of VIPs — down to 7% in average of VIPs are needed in campuslike scenarios to offload about 90% of the traffic.

Social defences and organisational culture in a local authority child protection setting: challenges for the Munro Review?

Abstract: The study of social defences against anxiety used within institutions has a long history, beginning with the seminal work of Isobel Menzies Lyth, who examined the reasons for the high rate of nursing students dropping out of their professional training within a large London teaching hospital. She identified a range of social defences used by nursing staff to manage the anxieties inherent within their work, including ritual task performance, reducing the weight of responsibility by checks and counterchecks and reduction of the impact of responsibility by upward delegation. British social work is haunted by the memories of children known to social services who have died. The anxieties experienced by child protection social workers derive from a variety of sources, ranging from daily exposure to powerful emotions within the families and other professionals that they work with to an awareness of a history of public inquiries and media coverage that has influenced public perceptions of their profession. Menzie...

DelQue: A Socially Aware Delegation Query Scheme in Delay-Tolerant Networks

Abstract: In delay-tolerant networks (DTNs), information search is a significant topic that has yet to be widely investigated. Although social-based approaches can be used to address the problem, most existing schemes employ the multihop paradigm and leave out the severe resource constraint in DTNs. In this paper, we experimentally explore several realistic data sets and then reveal that users' one-hop neighbors can cover most range of the whole network in a reasonable time period, which lays a solid fundamental for two-hop information search schemes. Therefore, we propose DelQue (delegation query), which is a novel two-hop delegation query scheme integratedly considering query and response to save network energy in terms of the number of involved relays. In DelQue, we exploit the social utility of each neighbor to represent its capability to query interesting information and then colocate with the source to respond. Furthermore, we also present a spatio-temporal prediction method of user mobility to compute neighbors' utility. Such a lightweight forecasting technique only requires network users to maintain two parameters, making it suitable for a resource-scarce mobile setting. Extensive realistic trace-driven simulations show that DelQue allows for the maintenance of a very high and steady information query ratio with extremely low energy cost and, meanwhile, achieves comparable or shorter delays compared with some existing schemes.