Creating Public Value: The Core Idea of Strategic Management in Government

INSIGHTThe core idea is a simple one: public managers should be focused on “creating public value” from the assets entrusted to them by the public. Those assets include public money, raised through the power of taxation, to provide for the public welfare. But they also often include the authority of the state to regulate the conduct of private actors either to prevent them from doing harm to the public welfare, or to require them to make contributions to the overall public good. It may also include their ability to kindle or take advantage of some pre-existing “public spirit”: -- the desires of citizens to contribute to important public purposes, or at least to do their duty or contribute their fair share to common efforts. To create public value, we need public managers with “restless, value-seeking imaginations” looking for opportunities to do so, figuring out how those opportunities might be exploited, and then doing so. This is an entrepreneurial style of management that is possible in the public sector only if one fully understands and acts in accord with the important processes of democratic legitimation and public accountability.To both guide and discipline value creating management in government, a simple strategic concept is taught and applied: the strategic triangle. The strategic triangle is supposed to do for public sector executives what the various strategy models developed in the private sector do for private sector executives: namely, help them position the enterprises that they lead in environments that are both highly dynamic (they change often), and very heterogeneous (they consist of many different expectations, and many unique and different operational challenges). The main purposes of the strategic triangle are to help executives both diagnose their environments to spot the opportunities for creating value (either by avoiding a harm or advancing a good), and to design and test in their minds particular actions they can imagine taking that would exploit the opportunity. In this sense, it is an opportunity spotting and planning tool. It can also be converted into a tool for monitoring progress as one goes along, and adapting as circumstances change. The core idea behind the strategic triangle is that to find and exploit value creating opportunities in the public sector, public managers have to find a fit among three different considerations that form the points of the triangle: First, they have to develop a test a more or less specific conception of the public value to be pursued through their individual efforts (usually launched from a particular position in government). This is an abstract philosophical idea of the good or the just brought into a particular concrete situation and turned into a specific idea of what it would mean for conditions in the particular part of the world for which one is responsible to be “improved.” What is it, exactly, that constitutes “progress” or “improvement” or “greater efficiency and effectiveness” or “increased value”? What is the point of the managerial effort one is about to make? What is the public value proposition that animates action? How could one tell whether one was making progress or not?Second, there has to be a concrete base of social legitimacy, public support, and public financing to produce the desired result. This is practically important: for without public support for a given purpose -- without a sustained flow of authority and money to a public agency for a particular purpose -- the enterprise cannot even survive, let alone achieve its desired result. It is also normatively or ethically important: without public support for a given purpose, a public manager cannot be sure that they are pursuing the right goals. Public legitimacy and support for a given cause is as important to public managers as capital financing and consumer purchases are to private sector firms. Without them, the public enterprise can neither practically succeed, nor be confident that it is doing something that is, in fact, publicly valuable.Third, the manager has to have, or be able to develop, the operational capacity required to deliver the desired results. Without the practical means of delivering on the promises made to create public value, the exercise of pursuing it will be futile and wasteful. Importantly, the operational capacity could already exist – in which case, the risks and costs may be low. But in many cases, the investment costs and the risks become greater because there has to be innovation, experimentation and development as well as routine operations. It is also true that the operational capacity to achieve the desired results can lie wholly within a single agency that one happens to lead. But it is far more likely that the operational capacity one needs to rely on lies outside the boundaries of one’s own organization. To the extent that is true, the effective development of the operational capacity one needs requires one to operate across the boundaries of organizations, and often even levels of government, and across the private-public boundary.

Open Innovation in Brazil: Exploring Opportunities and Challenges

While open innovation has been increasingly adopted in developed countries, firms from emerging markets such as Brazil markedly fall behind this trend. Our understanding of the reasons behind this phenomenon remains nevertheless limited, since most research focuses on the industrialized world. In this paper, we aim to inspire the academic community to investigate the issue of why companies from emerging economies such as Brazil have limited open innovation strategies, when they need to draw on external partners as to overcome the institutional, resource and capability constraints they are subject to. We build on the argument that latecomer firms in emerging economies need to actively use open innovation more than ever, as to overcome internal rigidities and spur the innovative resources and capabilities required for the digital transformation and for addressing grand societal challenges. In reviewing current research on openness and especially in the Brazilian setting, we contend that it is a relevant empirical context to study, giving the potential to uncover unique mechanisms and theoretical relations by asking (and possibly answering) novel research questions. Building on a conceptual framework that links various implementation levels of open innovation, we identify themes that are either less well researched or contested and thereby suggest challenges and opportunities for future research.

Metodología para la gestión integrada e inteligente de destinos turísticos de Manabí – Ecuador

Objective: Systematize methodologies that harmonize integrated and smart tourist destinations management with geographic information, for making timely and accurate decisions, contributing to quality in the context of the cantonal tourist territories of the province, Manabí - Ecuador. Methodology / approach: The paradigms of the management of tourist destinations that reconcile all the participants, policies, components and parts of the system; expressed in an integrated management. The use of information and communication technologies is geared towards smart management, that envolve tourists, communities and managers. Everything in tourism is tied to space and territory, the information systems used require a response to the “where” through analysis and representation tools of places. Originality / Relevance: The sequence of steps of various methodologies and of the systematized theory, focus the integrated and smart tourim destination management, in the transit from the parts to the whole. In practice, it implies the voluntary participation of businessmen, interested in the homogeneous improvement of tourist quality in the territory. Main results: A theoretical model of the concepts that make up the understanding of the integrated and smart tourism destination management and territories for the improvement of quality. A reconfigured methodology from others, for putting the theoretical model into practice. Theoretical / methodological contributions: Guidance for decision-making in tourist territories and understanding by entrepreneurs and managers, to reverse the particular improvement of their businesses, in the homogeneous improvement of the tourist quality of the territories and tourist destinations of the Manabí province.

O QUE SABEMOS SOBRE AS BARREIRAS À TRANSFERÊNCIA DE CONHECIMENTO? UM ESTUDO BIBLIOMÉTRICO SOBRE INTERNAL STICKINESS

Objective of the study: to identify the intellectual structure of research on Internal Stickiness (IS) from the references existing in publications on this topic.Methodology / Approach: a bibliometric analysis of quotation and quotation was used, as well as a network analysis. The sample, after worked and free of articles that were not part of the theme, was composed of 152 articles from 1994 to 2018.Originality / Relevance: The transfer of knowledge and best practices among members of the organization has attracted considerations from academia and organizations, because the company's competitiveness is directly linked to the knowledge acquired and its sharing. The difficulty of transferring knowledge and best practices in organizations is represented by the term Internal Stickiness (IS).Main results: three fields were identified that guide research on (IS): Knowledge Transfer; Knowledge transfer as a positive factor for the organization; Knowledge Transfer and Strategic Innovation.Theoretical / methodological contributions: it was possible to identify that there was no review article on the topic (IS). So, this study was able to contribute with the theory and show the existing works that had a greater influence on (IS).Social / management contributions: it is noticed that the existing articles deal with (IS) as the difficulty of knowledge transfer. With this, this study can also contribute to the practice of knowledge transfer, mainly because this theme is related to the development of competitive advantage in companies.Keywords: Internal Stickiness; Knowledge Transfer; Bibliometric.

Caracterización del capital intelectual en las universidades publicas. Estudio comparativo.

Objective: characterize and compare the intellectual capital in Mexican universities.Methodology / Approach: The study was based on a semi structured survey applied to 102 professors-researchers in four Mexican state universities of the business and administration area.Originality / Relevance: Universities are a source of knowledge; therefore their competitive advantage lies in the configuration of this element to encourage their performance. Thus, the issue of intellectual capital tends to have greater relevance in order to understand this dynamic in the different productive actors and users of knowledge such as universities.Main results: The results show that there are six relevant sub-dimensions of intellectual capital from which levels of intellectual capital are characterized in each university.Theoretical / methodological contributions: intellectual capital refers to the knowledge in organizations enabling them to generate value.Intellectual capital studies are approached from the perspective of companies, however there are few done from the perspective of universities.Keywords: Intellectual Capital; Measurement; Public Mexican Universities; Scientific Knowledge; Professor

Potential impact of creative infusion on perceptions and behaviors of visitors: theory and evidence from tourism

This study aims to synthesize creative infusion with the theory of inoculation. It is sought to reveal the potential impact of this synthesis’ application on the perceptions and behaviors of visitors. Relationships among variables are assessed using Solomon Four Group and Factorial Modeling based on experimental designs. The data are gathered from tourists (n = 451) at the Seven Churches sites (Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Sardis, Philadelphia, Thyatira and Laodicea) in Turkey. Model results indicate that perceived creative infusion has a significant impact on revisits and recommendations. This is the first study which examines the relationship between perception and behavior by synthesizing creative infusion with inoculation theory in the tourism literature. Furthermore, it is a new contribution to the tourism literature through its revealing that inoculation theory also works in synthesis with creative infusion in the field of destination marketing as previously shown in such fields as behavioral science, communication, marketing and social psychology.

Conflitos de Agência e Assimetria de Informações Contábeis: Entre a Tomada de Decisão e a Gestão Corporativa

Objective - The registration and disclosure of the company's accounting information, attributed to the accounting professional, is of utmost importance for the decision making process for the company-manager. This theoretical essay presents and discusses the main contributions of the theory on management decision making between the company and the accounting process.Methodology - In methodological terms, this study is defined as a theoretical essay, in the sense that it seeks, through the existing literature, an understanding of the issue of Corporate Governance in Non-Governmental Organizations. This study can be classified as a theoretical-conceptual bibliographic research. The study will search the existing literature of the theme, with the purpose of elaborating a theoretical reference on Agency Theory, Accounting and Corporate Governance.Results - As a contribution to the discussion, this work was developed from extensive bibliographic research in Brazilian and international journals and events, contemplating foundations related to the reality of Accounting and organizations. Although few researches address the association of these theories with accounting practice, especially regarding the production of accounting information for external users, the research findings expose the close relationship between the two fields of knowledge. Contributions - Among the main contributions of decision theories to accounting science, knowledge about human behavior that can be used in behavioral accounting, the need for subsidies for accountants to make more rational decisions and, especially, the possibility of improving accounting systems, aiming at better treatment of information for the decision-making process, stand out.