Opportunism

About: Opportunism is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 2030 publications have been published within this topic receiving 97170 citations. The topic is also known as: opportunist.

Assessing job self-efficacy and organizational commitment considering a mediating role of information asymmetry

Abstract: This study establishes a model by drawing from key postulates and findings under information asymmetry to explain the formation of organization commitment and job self-efficacy. In the proposed model, organizational commitment and job self-efficacy are influenced indirectly by social support, knowledge creation, and information intensity via the mediation of decision-making quality and perceived opportunism. Knowledge creation is influenced directly by both social support and information intensity. Empirical testing of this model, by investigating personnel from firms in one of Taiwan's well-known industrial zones, confirms the applicability of information asymmetry in understanding employees’ organizational commitment and job self-efficacy. The test results indicate that all the model paths except one (linking perceived opportunism and job self-efficacy) are significant. Finally, the research provides managerial implications and limitations.

Governing of Agro-Ecosystem Services

Abstract: In this paper we incorporate interdisciplinary New Institutional and Transaction Costs Economics (combining Economics, Organization, Law, Sociology, Behavioral and Political Sciences), and suggest a framework for analysis of mechanisms of governance of agro-ecosystem services. Firstly, we present a new approach for analysis and improvement of governance of agro-ecosystem services. It takes into account the role of specific institutional environment (formal and informal rules, distribution of rights, systems of enforcement); and behavioral characteristics of individual agents (preferences, bounded rationality, opportunism, risk aversion, trust); and transactions costs associated with ecosystem services and their critical factors (uncertainty, frequency, asset specificity, appropriability); and comparative efficiency of market, private, public and hybrid modes of governance. Secondly, we identify spectrum of market and private forms of governance of agro-ecosystem services (voluntary initiatives; market trade with eco-products and services; special contractual arrangements; collective actions; vertical integration), and evaluate their efficiency and potential. Next, we identify needs for public involvement in the governance of agro-ecosystem services, and assess comparative efficiency of alternative modes of public interventions (assistance, regulations, funding, taxing, provision, partnership, property right modernization). Finally, we analyze structure and efficiency of governance of agro-ecosystems services in Zapadna Stara Planina – a mountainous region in North-West Bulgaria. Post-communist transition and EU integration has brought about significant changes in the state and governance of agro-ecosystems services. Newly evolved market, private and public governance has led to significant improvement of part of agro-ecosystems services introducing modern eco-standards and public support, enhancing environmental stewardship, desintensifying production, recovering landscape and traditional productions, diversifying quality, products, and services. At the same time, novel governance is associated with some new challenges such as unsustainable exploitation, lost biodiversity, land degradation, water and air contamination. What is more, implementation of EU common policies would have no desired impact on agro-ecosystem services unless special measures are taken to improve management of public programs, and extend public support to dominating small-scale and subsistence farms.

Country Environments and the Adoption of IT Outsourcing

Abstract: Research on information technology IT outsourcing adoption has been confined to a single-country perspective. The understanding of how country-specific variables influence the adoption of IT outsourcing is limited. This study uses new institutional economics to build a framework that links country-level factors to the adoption of IT domestic outsourcing. The authors suggest that country-level factors, such as the maturity of the IT-related legal system, social trust, uncertainty avoidance, Internet penetration, and the maturity of the IT outsourcing market, affect the opportunism costs and coordination costs involved in domestic IT outsourcing and influence its adoption among firms. The results show that the maturity of the IT-related legal system, social trust, and the maturity of the IT outsourcing market are positively associated with IT outsourcing adoption. The authors conclude the paper with a discussion of the study's implications for practice and future research.

The Politics of State-Business Relationships in Malawi

Abstract: Adopting an historical institutionalist approach, we show that the politics of state-business relations (SBRs) in Malawi have been shaped by three historical factors, namely (a) the low level of capitalist development in the country; (b) the dominant influence of the Malawian state and political regime under Dr Banda for the first 30 years of independence; and (c) the manner in which informal institutions of generalized reciprocity, deeply and authentically embedded in Malawian culture and values, have contributed to blurring the distinction between the public and the private. Historically, the post-independence state exercised excessive influence through regulations and restrictions and dominated the business sector itself through statutory corporations and their subsidiaries. The private sector has been viewed by the state with suspicion and mistrust while the private sector has regarded the state as a source of patronage and opportunity. Close links and personal traffic between the elite of the main business association, the Malawi Confederation of Cambers of Commerce and Industry (MCCCI), and political office have entailed collusive relations which do not necessarily represent the interests of the many and predominantly small and micro businesses. Neither state nor business have yet developed the levels of relative autonomy vis a vis each other which might form the basis for effective and synergetic SBRs. With the exception of the recent privatization programme, efforts to strengthen the private sector have, till recently, gone through cycles of what appear to be superficial policy fashions. Despite rhetoric to the contrary, the net effect is that political processes continue to shape institutional patterns of SBRs in Malawi which are characterized by a continuing dependence of the main business association on the state and by reluctance on the part of the state to allow or encourage autonomous capitalist development. This suggests that the influence of historical patterns and informal institutions has been strong, and remains so, though there have been recent indications that efforts are being made to do this ‘de-politicize’ the MCCCI. From a policy point of view, encouragement, support and the provision of opportunities and incentives for business associations to recognise the benefits of autonomy need to be considered. Likewise, providing opportunities for state leadership to recognise the benefits that can flow from building a synergetic relationship with business needs consideration. In short, investing in processes which help to encourage and institutionalize autonomies and synergies on both sides is the way forward if SBRs in Malawi are to shift more quickly and effectively from their path-dependent trends of the past, typified by state-domination, elements of collusion and opportunism and pervasive mistrust.

Corporate Groups: Corporate Law, Private Contracting and Equal Ownership

Abstract: In this paper we provide a simple and general framework that explains the nature of groups, their corporate governance problems and their ownership structures as the result of the double nature of the controlling shareholder in the group as both shareholder and stakeholder of the subsidiary. We use this framework to conduct an economic and empirical analysis that explores the limitations of regulation and shareholders’ agreements to deal with this dual nature of the parent. Our analysis is able to explain the extreme ownership structures prevalent across groups as solution of last resort to unresolved corporate governance problems when regulation is inefficient and transaction costs limit the use of contracts to provide shared control. We go on to test these ideas conducting an empirical study that explains groups ownership structures and allows us to derive important policy implications. First, it exposes the structural limitations that corporate law encounters to contain the corporate governance problems of groups. Second, it calls for an acknowledgement of the crucial role of shareholders agreements in corporate governance. Shareholder agreements offer the best alternative to protect parent and subsidiary from mutual opportunism, while preserving the incentives to cooperate. Guarantying the enforceability of these contracts offers jurisdictions the most efficient way forward to reduce expropriation in corporate groups.