Indications of Goal Displacement in Regulatory Enforcement Agencies: An Empirical Exploration

This paper describes indications of goal displacement in regulatory enforcement agencies as reported by enforcement professionals from a range of regulatory domains. The findings suggest that the occurrence of this phenomenon in these agencies may be more prevalent and multifaceted than expected. Among the goal-displacement types reported as most impactful were goal narrowing, induced by calamities, goal diversion through ongoing organizational reform, and goal diversion brought upon by strict regimes of output management. A systematic exploration of these various goal-displacement types as conducted here sheds light onto the intricate nature of goal alignment of these agencies.

Capacities, capabilities, and the societal impact of the humanities

This article explores new theoretical directions for understanding societal impact of the humanities and in a wider context. Arguing from the position that current evaluation policies and practises are in many cases ill-suited to research in the humanities, with risk of goal displacement, it takes up the debate about what the proper goals of research in the humanities are. Asking: If we risk goal displacement, what are the proper goals researchers are being led away from? Using Miranda Fricker’s theory of epistemic justice and Amartya Sen’s capability approach, it argues for the need for a ‘capability theory’ for social capacities to understand societal impact. On the basis of this, a better understanding of the societal impact of research in the humanities can be developed, as well as new ways of assessing (ex ante and ex post) the societal impact of research projects and programmes in the humanities.

In the Pursuit of Practical Solutions and “Satisficing” Performance: The Case of Israel’s Nonprofit Human Services

Evaluating performance in nonprofit human services remains an ongoing empirical and conceptual challenge. Here, we introduce the concept of "satisficing" to capture the influence of intra- and inter- organizational factors on performance. We contend that the combination of organizational age and size, which shapes an organization’s complexity and dependency, will define the balance between social and economic criteria. Further, we contend that this definition will ultimately enable nonprofit human services to reach a satisficing level of management practices. More importantly, we contend that a practical compromise between social and economic performance determines whether satisficing performance is possible though practical solutions so that both effective attainment of the organizational mission and efficient management practices are possible with little risk of goal displacement.

Disentangling policy convergence within the European Higher Education Area

This paper addresses convergence as a political issue stemming from the political coordination of the European Higher Education Area. From the perspective of cultural theory, this issue relies on the fact that the influence of ways of life are not evenly influential in the political coordination of the European Higher Education Area. Convening the results of previous studies on the progress of Bologna, this paper underlines how goal displacement is challenging convergence in the ambit of the broader European Union political project. Additionally, the paper concludes that education within the European Higher Education Area is being configured by the prominence of the individualist and the fatalist ways of life.

Understanding China's Court Mediation Surge: Insights from a Local Court

This article seeks to understand how reported mediation rates in Chinese courts are produced and what they actually signify. It analyzes data obtained through prolonged fieldwork at a court in central China. The article finds that the court has directly responded to central level mediation incentives by enhancing its overall mediation rate. It has done so strategically by seeking the highest increase using the fullest discretion in the mediation incentive structure and seeking to optimize the highest rate at the lowest cost and risk to the court. This has undermined the objectives of the central level incentives toward mediation, while also drawing the courts' scarce resources away toward unnecessary mediation practices, in part far removed from the courtroom. The article concludes by drawing out broader theoretical conclusions about how information asymmetries, discretion, and goal displacement play out in hierarchical control structures of authoritarian courts.