This dissertation investigated how senior management is motivated to commit to information system security (ISS). Research shows senior management participation is critical to successful ISS, but has not explained how senior managers are motivated to participate in ISS. Information systems research shows pressures external to the organization have greater influence on senior managers than internal pressures. However, research has not fully examined how external pressures motivate senior management participation in ISS. This study addressed that gap by examining how external pressures motivate senior management participation in ISS through the lens of neo-institutional theory. The research design was survey research. Data collection was through an online survey, and PLS was used for data analysis. Sample size was 167 from a study population of small- and medium-sized organizations in a mix of industries in the south-central United States. Results supported three of six hypotheses. Mimetic mechanisms were found to influence senior management belief in ISS, and senior management belief in ISS was found to increase senior management participation in ISS. Greater senior management participation in ISS led to greater ISS assimilation in organizations. Three hypotheses were not supported. Correlation was not found between normative influences and senior management belief, normative influences and senior management participation, and coercive influences and senior management participation. Limitations with the study included a high occurrence of weak effect sizes on relationships within the model and heterogeneity based on industry, organization size, and regulatory requirements in the sample. This study contributes to ISS research by providing a theoretical model to explain how external influences contribute to senior management belief and participation in ISS, and ultimately ISS assimilation in organizations. Empirical evidence supports the mediating role by senior management between external influences and ISS assimilation. The findings also suggest some limitations that may exist with survey research in this area. This study benefits practitioners in three ways. First, it reinforces the argument that senior management support is critical to ISS success. Second, it extends understanding of senior management's role with ISS by explaining how IS and ISS management might nurture senior management belief and participation in ISS through industry groups and business partnerships. Third, the results inform government regulators and industry groups how they can supplement regulatory pressures with educational and awareness campaigns targeted at senior management to improve senior management commitment to ISS.

When Turkey became a candidate of the EU in 1999 it had been a problematic applicant for forty years due to residual unpopularity with several member states for cultural, economic, security and normative reasons. However, the Helsinki European Council heralded a change of fortunes for Ankara and by 2005 accession negotiations had opened. This happened in spite of Turkey remaining an unpopular candidate with some member states. Moreover, since 2005, Turkey s standing within the EU has returned to a position akin to its pre-1999 stasis. This thesis thus asks: why did Turkey make such progress between 1999 and 2004/5? What was the specific configuration of structures, processes and actions that enabled that to happen then but not before or after? The thesis approaches this puzzle using a stretched eclectic version of Historical Institutionalism which can incorporate the effects of both structure and agency. In this way it can include the influence of wider structural factors, such as CEEC enlargement, Cyprus and ESDP as well as the agency of Turkey s advocates within the EU. It is a detailed qualitative process-tracing study which uses semi-structured interviews and documentary evidence to make a case for a given explanation. It concludes that a path dependent process, influenced by both structure and agency, can be traced from the Helsinki European Council to that in Brussels five years later which rhetorically entrapped the member states into agreeing to open accession negotiations in spite of Turkey s underlying unpopularity. By adopting this framework for analysis, the thesis makes a contribution to the literature on the Turkey-EU accession process by viewing the time period as a whole and taking a temporal rather than a snapshot approach. In so doing it is possible to explain why and how Turkey was able to make such progress between 1999 and 2004. It is also valuable in the study of present Turkey-EU relations as the ultimate conclusion has to be that there was a unique window of opportunity for both Turkey and the EU during this time and the window may now have closed.

<p>This thesis aims to explore the different aspects of the phenomenon of migration in Greece, as a case study. The choice of country is motivated by its geographical position at Europe’s external borders. In order to gain an insight into the reality that migrants are faced with when searching for a better life in Europe, a field study was conducted in Athens, Greece during a period of six weeks in the spring of 2010. The field work included interviews with various actors and individuals that are directly involved in migration issues, informal discussions with migrants and personal observations. Additionally, secondary sources such as previous studies were used. The framework used to approach the material included elements from neo-institutionalism, hermeneutics as well as critical theory.</p><p>The most important conclusions reached incorporate that the rights of migrants are not respected in any aspect of the societal sphere, or in other words the three institutional pillars, the regulative, normative and cultural-cognitive. As a result, there are double standards applied to Europeans respective migrants. As a possible cause of the problematic situation described, underlying perceptions of national identity versus "otherness" are identified. These perceptions derive from a deeply rooted acceptance of social constructions such as national borders, as undisputable facts.</p>

- / Inspired by Douglass North’s work on the role of institutions in economic structure and change and in particular the role of state institutions, this thesis attempts to explore the process of economic transformation through analyzing state-business community relations in the city of Kunshan, Jiangsu, China. The author uses primary data from Kunshan to demonstrate how the open-door policy of China has led to changes in the institutional environment parallel to the economic transformation. Kunshan’s institutional development is analyzed in terms of two factors. First is ‘autonomy’ as in the ability and capacity of the local state to define and pursue its own development strategy. Second is ‘embeddedness’ as in the local state developing a regular relationship with economic elites that share its goals of economic transformation. These two are seen as complementary necessities for economic transformation. This thesis shows how the local state in Kunshan has strengthened both its capacity and integrity to pursue economic transformation and the actual pursuit of it through closer and more institutionalized relations with the business community.

Susiklosčius ekonominio sunkmečio situacijai, Lietuvos valdžios institucijoms ir įstaigoms tenka ieškoti būdų kaip taupyti ir optimizuoti biudžeto lėšas. Kreipiamas didelis dėmesys į efektyvesnį lėšų panaudojimą valstybiniame sektoriuje. Pradėta Lietuvos vykdomosios valdžios institucijų sistemos reforma, kuri apėmė įvairius sistemos lygius. Šiomis pertvarkomis siekta aiškios valstybės institucijų vietos valstybės valdymo sistemoje nustatymo, funkcijų išgryninimo, didesnės institucijų atskaitomybės, veiklos efektyvumo. Analizuojant reformų rengimą ir įgyvendinimą Lietuvoje gretinimui buvo pasitelktas ir Norvegijos vykdomosios valdžios struktūrinių reformų atvejis. Taigi šio darbo tikslas – ištirti Lietuvos vykdomosios valdžios institucijų sistemos pertvarkas centrinės valdžios lygmenyje. Siekiant įgyvendinti darbo tikslą ir iškeltus uždavinius, buvo atliekamas empirinis tyrimas. Pasitelktas pusiau struktūruoto interviu su Lietuvos vykdomosios valdžios institucijų sistemos pertvarkų administracinio lauko veikėjais. Tyrimo metu surinkti duomenys buvo analizuojami naudojantis institucionalizmo teorijos įrankiais ir kategorijomis. Darbe atskleisti veiksniai, kurie įtakojo reformų Lietuvoje rengimą, nustatomi užsibrėžti pertvarkų tikslai. Taip pat analizuojami veikėjų, dalyvavusių pertvarkose, įtaka ir interesai. Bandoma ištirti, kaip institucijos bendradarbiavo ir komunikavo reformos rengimo bei įgyvendinimo procese, kokiomis priemonėmis bandė siekti savo tikslų ir... [toliau žr. visą tekstą] / During an economic recession public institutions must find ways to save money and optimize state budget. A careful attention must be payed to efficient use of funds in the public sector. In Lithuania an executive branch reorganization which included the various levels of the executive system has been started. Aims of these transformations were to set clear positions of institutions in the system of executive branch, refine the functions of these institutions, achieve greater institutional accountability and efficiency. An analysis of the reform development and implementation in Lithuania was compared to executive structural reforms in Norway. Consequently, the aim of this work is to investigate the executive branch reorganization and reform of Ministries in Lithuania. In order to implement the objective and tasks of this work an empirical research was carried out. Semi-structured interviews with members of Lithuanian reform administrative field were taken. The study collected data were analyzed using the tools of institutional theory. This work revealed forces, which influenced the development and implementation of ecetutive branch reform in Lithuania and identifies goals of this reorganization. It also analyzes the power and interests of the members of administrative field who took part in the reform. Also, this work is trying to examine how cooperation and communications during processes of reform took place and attempts to achieve goals and interests. This study... [to full text]

This thesis investigates the phenomenon of corporate governance in the Egyptian banking sector (EBS); it aims to understand the nature of corporate governance in this context and identify the factors shaping it. Especially that these aspects had been ignored by the literature. Through grounded theory methodology, an empirical study of the nature of corporate governance in the EBS is undertaken, it identifies the factors affecting corporate governance in the EBS, the interests corporate governance is serving and as such outline the model of corporate governance prevailing in the EBS. Grounded theory methodology is illustrated by the thesis in the following ways. First, through an application of the comparative method in the open coding stage based on semi-structured interviews conducted with bank directors and executives, government officials, auditors and central bank officials, open coding developed categories and identified their properties and dimensions. Indeed, the interviews were informed by the survey of banks’ corporate governance (BCG) practices. Second, through axial coding open categories were subsumed into broader categories, and the relationships among these categories were established by means of the paradigm model. This has led to building the Bank Action Choice Matrix and the Paradigm Model of Evolving BCG in the EBS. Axial coding provided the basis of the substantive theory. Third, selective coding based on a second round of semi-structured interviews had identified the core category, verified its relationships with other sub-categories and eventually presented the substantive theory of BCG. The substantive theory was further explored in terms of the New Institutional Sociological Theory (NIST), leading to more formal substantive theory that consider corporate governance a social process affected by non-economic factors such as culture, politics, legal framework and human factors. It identified that BCG is in the process of institutionalization in the EBS. This process is geared toward the regulative pillar of institutions and the use of coercive power by the regulator, with banks adopting corporate governance seeking legitimacy. It also concluded that BCG is a political process, with powerful actors pushing to serve their interests; as such BCG is about power. Finally, it explained the heterogeneity of banks’ strategic responses to BCG institution, as some banks comply while others disguise their non-compliance, affected by internal organizational characteristics that hinder compliance and make some banks more susceptible to external obstacles. This thesis extended the use of grounded theory to explore the phenomenon of corporate governance in an unexplored context, identified the prevailing BCG model in the EBS and explained the substantive theory of BCG in terms of NIST as such offered a non-traditional perspective for corporate governance theorizing. It contributes to better understanding of NIST by accounting for institutionalization as a process and explaining the heterogeneity of organizational strategic responses. Finally, this thesis is the first attempt to combine corporate governance, grounded theory and NIST offering policy-makers useful views for BCG reform.

This objective of this thesis is to explore welfare politics and welfare policy in Britain and South Korea (hereafter Korea) focusing on ex-miners with coal workers’ pneumoconiosis (hereafter CWP) and laws and institutions concerned (the IIA in 1946 and the CWPS in 1974 in Britain, and the IACI in 1964 and the APPPPW in 1984 in Korea). The reason to choose this group is that they stand at complex conjunction of circumstances - the elderly, the poor, the disabled and the persons injured at work. In addition, the reason to examine laws and institutions concerned is that they contain more general issues of welfare politics. The theories adopted in this thesis are historical institutionalism and power resources theory which together give an important insight about institutions, politics and welfare state. Based on these theories, this thesis defines welfare politics, its determinants and why it may be deficient. The major elements of welfare politics can be characterized as class politics as exemplified in the role of trade unions, social democracy as a basic ideology and social corporatism as a type of political participation and policy-making. Generally there are three major variables in welfare politics; the organization of trade unions and control of their members; left-wing political parties and solidarity between trade unions and the parties; and the institutionalization of social dialogue and social policy. From the above determinants, the concept of ‘the deficiency of politics’ can be defined. Firstly, it is a weakness or extinction of class politics through the exclusion of the labour movement. Secondly, it can be explained by the weakness of progressive political parties in state politics or the lack of solidarity between labour unions and political parties resulting in a difficulty of access to social policy formation by trade unions. Finally, the concept of the ‘deficiency of politics’ is related to a poor legacy of institutions and the weakness or absence of a class compromise system. To summarize the research results, there are differences in the areas of welfare politics and welfare system between Britain and Korea. Welfare politics in Britain on this issue includes elements of class politics, labour politics and exchange politics based on balanced power relations among classes and the corporatist political system. Welfare politics in Korea, however, is characterized by pressure group politics in specific areas and legitimacy politics for national goals based on state corporatism. In addition, welfare politics has established different welfare institutions. Korea has established a residual welfare system while Britain has an institutional system. Furthermore, the institutions regulate their welfare politics in different ways: the interests of ex-miners with CWP are secured through established schemes by trade unions in Britain while in Korea the schemes are operated unfairly by interest groups in the interests of a sub-group of the sufferers. As a result, in Korea, welfare politics based on these politics and institutions leads beneficiaries to distrust the Government, relevant institutions, and even their own organization. Similarly, the distrust which exists in Korean ex-miners with CWP can be understood and explained in terms of social policy which has been formed and is being affected by welfare politics. There are five findings in this thesis. Firstly, the distrustful attitudes of Korean ex-miners with CWP originate from welfare institutions and welfare politics which are closely related. Secondly, the principle of new institutionalism, the correlation between institution and politics, is evident in compensation politics in both Britain and Korea. Thirdly, in an explanation of the Korean welfare state, a power resources model rooted in political economy and corporatism is more persuasive than a cultural approach based upon Confucianism. Fourthly, there are many differences in this policy area between Britain and Korea despite similarities in their welfare state regimes. Fifthly, politics rather than institutions are the dominant explanatory variable.

The Scottish Parliament which (re)convened in 1999 was designed to engender a new style of political practice. This ‘new politics’ was intended to address perceived failures within the ‘Westminster approach’ to policy‐making and the ‘democratic deficit’ believed to have emerged during the 1980s in Scotland. Key to achieving this were four principles around which the Parliament’s operations were designed: power‐sharing; accountability; accessibility and participation; and equal opportunities. Citing accessibility and participation as the ‘cornerstone’ of their work, the Parliament’s institutional architects (the Consultative Steering Group) argued that devolution should deliver a participatory democracy, with proactive efforts to be made by the Parliament to involve groups traditionally excluded from the policy process. Due to the increasing prominence in recent years of discourse relating to young people’s disillusionment with organised politics and the CSG’s recommendation that every effort should be made to include them in the new Parliament’s work, this research examines the degree to which greater accessibility to and participation in the Parliament’s work has been delivered for children and young people during the Parliament’s first two terms (1999‐2007). Findings are based upon a mixed‐methodological case‐study approach, involving an audit of the Parliament's activity and qualitative input from MSPs, Parliament staff, representatives of youth charities / organisations / advocacy groups, and young people themselves. The thesis argues that progress has been more pronounced in relation to accessibility than participation for younger people. The neoinstitutionalist theoretical framework suggests that insufficient rule specification in relation to the value of public participation and younger people has resulted in the emergence of hybridised logics of appropriate behaviour, particularly among parliamentarians. The result is the persistence of attitudes and practices which appear to reinforce aspects of Westminster practice and an adultist approach to young people’s role in politics. Drawing upon recent developments in neoinstitutionalist theories of reliable reproduction, institutional breakdown and gradual change, the thesis examines the institutional logic behind the failure to consolidate the Parliament’s founding vision.

Competency-based education is intended to benefit working non-traditional students who have knowledge and skills from prior work experiences, but it also enables self-motivated students to accelerate their time to degree, thereby increasing affordability and efficiency. Competency-based education clarifies what a credentialed student will be able to do and makes assessment more transparent and relevant to those outside of higher education. Competency-based education has arisen in response to the problem defined by the national reform discourses of accountability and affordability. In the first manuscript, History & Objections Repeated: Re-Innovating Competency-Based Education, I review the history of social efficiency reform efforts in American education in order to re-contextualize the “innovation” of competency-based education as a repackage of older ideas to fit the public’s current view of what needs to be fixed in higher education. I discuss the concept of “efficiency” and how it has been interpreted in the past and today with regard to competency-based education and its rejection of an earlier attempt at increasing efficiency in education: the Carnegie credit hour. For the second manuscript, Framing Competency-Based Education in the Discourse of Reform, I analyzed four years of news articles and white papers on competency-based education to reveal the national discourses around competency-based education. I used thematic discourse analysis to identify diagnostic and prognostic narrative frames (Snow & Benford, 1988) that argue for and against competency-based education. These frames were put in the context of the politicized conversation around the current main issues in higher education: access, attainment, accountability, and affordability. Each of these issues provided a foundation of coding the discourse which was then shaped by the context of competency-based education, particularly its positioning as a solution to the Iron Triangle dilemma of decreasing cost while increasing access and quality. The third manuscript, Idea and Implementation: A Case Study of KCTCS’s CBE Learn on Demand, involves an institutional case study of a competency-based education program, Learn on Demand (LOD), within the Kentucky Community and Technical College System (KCTCS). Eleven semi-structured interviews were conducted with student success coaches, faculty, and staff who are directly involved with the program across seven different colleges, and documents such as marketing materials, presentations, and administrator-written articles were also analyzed as a representation of the official discourse of the program. As institutions start to explore and develop competency-based education programs, the faculty and administrators at those institutions are likely influenced by the intersection of pre-existing organizational and subgroup culture, societal beliefs about the definition and purpose of education, and how innovations may shape the experiences of individuals. Through interviewing individuals, I was able to parse out the impacts of both institutional politics and innovation-related concerns on the success of implementation.

The development of political modernity in Europe entailed a process whereby formerly important political forms increasingly lost significance and were transformed in a long process that led to the separation of individuals from political power, in the distinctive shape of modern (depoliticised) civil society and the state. The thought of G.W.F Hegel (1770–1831), which has fundamentally shaped the modern understanding of these developments, came to its maturity at the most advanced stage of this process, while the French Revolution was transforming the continental world. He thought through this process from a very early stage in his development (1800–4), and thereby formed the essentials of his political theory. But on the cusp of this modernity Hegel seemed to affirm what has appeared to many as the old powers that had disappeared in the formation of the modern state – the Stände. For many he thereby turned his political thought into an apparent anachronism. This dissertation, however, will argue that Hegel’s thought remains fundamentally modern and not at all anachronistic in its affirmation of the Stände. On the contrary, it is only through an examination of the concept of the Stände in Hegel’s thought, that one can fully understand the essentially institutional focus of his politics. This dissertation will argue for the significance of the concept of the Stände through historically situating Hegel’s thought and its engagement with the modern tradition. It will do so through a methodological examination of the concept in Hegel’s early period (1800–4) where the institutional character of his politics is first shaped and formed, in the perspective of insights from his mature political philosophy (1820/21). In so doing it will show how the concept of the Stände and the institutionalism it implies form Hegel’s unique response to the development of modern civil society.