Regulating for creativity and cultural diversity: the case of collective management organisations and the music industry

This paper explores the role of intermediary institutions in promoting creativity and cultural diversity in the music industry, and the impact of cultural policy on the performance of those intermediaries. It reviews some of the existing literature on the relationship between economic conditions and innovation in music, and argues that too little attention has been paid to intermediaries. Focusing on collective management organisations (CMOs) as one example of overlooked intermediaries, we illustrate, by way of comparison, the different priorities and incentives that drive CMO practice. These variations, we suggest, are important to appreciating how CMOs operate as intermediaries in different territories. We then turn our attention to recent attempts by the EU to reform CMO practice as part of its Digital Single Market project. The fact that the CMO has been an object of reform is indicative of its importance. However, there is more at stake here: the reforms themselves, in seeking to change the role and behaviour of CMOs will, we suggest, have profound consequences for the market in music in Europe, and for creativity and cultural diversity within that market.     

Harnessing the sending state: Pragmatic improvisations and negotiated memberships of the Chinese diaspora in Laos

As a form of state-led transnationalism, diaspora strategies have garnered much scholarly attention over the past two decades. Yet, the robust intellectual field still sees a dearth of works addressing how the power of the sending state is lived and experienced in the prosaic lives of transnationality. This paper fills the gap by examining the grounded ramifications of a specific approach that the Chinese government deploys to cultivate diaspora. It prioritizes coopting civil association leaders (hui-zhang) from populations abroad for diaspora governance. I unpack how street-level bureaucracies involved in the execution of this sending state strategy has been exploited by the Chinese entrepreneurs in Laos through qualitative fieldwork. My analysis reveals that these situated actors scrambled to set up their own diaspora associations in an attempt to make themselves hui-zhang eligible for the home country government's targeted engagement. In doing so, they accessed opportunities to appropriate and rework resources from the Chinese state for self-interested accumulation of symbolic and social capital. Both forms of capital are crucial to propel their wealth amassment in private career as intermediaries who extract commissions and kickbacks by brokering Chinese investments into Laos. Detailing these dynamics, the paper elucidates how the power of the sending state is disseminated and enacted through mundane and pragmatic improvisations of diasporic actors. Empirics presented also bring forward a nuanced understanding of the de facto convoluted relations between the Chinese government and the overseas Chinese populations.     

RESISTANCE AND STRATEGIC RESPONSES IN FOOD SUPPLY NETWORKS: METRO CASH & CARRY IN BANGALORE

The transnational expansion of large retail and wholesale companies such as Metro, Carrefour and Wal‐Mart has caused changes in the market situation and consequent power shifts, not only in the retail sector but also in the supply networks in host countries. These developments at least potentially endanger the livelihoods of old established retailers, intermediaries and employees of these businesses. Thus, it is not surprising that the investments of the transnational companies can result in resistance from those affected. As an analysis of Metro and its activities in the federal state of Karnataka in India shows, this resistance can influence the activities of the company to develop a modern supply network. This study analyses the way in which the actors of resistance develop and exercise power and how this in turn influences Metro. The global production network (GPN) approach is used as an analytical framework. The results emphasize the importance of networks external to the firm for the analysis of processes of globalization. The company's behaviour cannot be understood unless the resistance is taken into account. The study shows that the GPN framework provides the tools to analyse the influence of actors such as civil society groups, trade unions and associations as part of the production network. However, up to now this option has rarely been used.     

The Role of Knowledge Intermediaries in Developing Firm Learning Capabilities

Regional innovation systems (RISs) literature has emphasized the critical role of interactive learning and knowledge exchange amongst firms and a variety of spatially connected innovation institutions as the foundation of regional innovation. Knowledge intermediaries have been analysed in terms of the technology-transaction services they provide firms and/or knowledge producers such as universities and therefore the role they play in facilitating interaction within the RIS. However, innovation also depends on the capability of the firm to learn. Some studies have suggested that intermediaries also play a role in that regard as participation in intermediary knowledge transfer programmes can contribute to the development of firm capabilities for problem-solving and learning. Our research is based on two case study intermediary programmes involving interviews with facilitators and participants. Our data show that knowledge intermediaries affect organizational learning capabilities by impacting on firms' network relationships, internal and external communication channels and internal learning processes which in turn affect the ability to interpret and use knowledge within the firm. This suggests that the role of knowledge intermediaries might be greater than facilitating interactions in the innovation system, as knowledge intermediation may affect the ability of firms to learn and absorb knowledge from their environment.     

The Politics of Economic Diversification: Reconceptualizing the Rural Informal Sector in South-east Tanzania

This study examines how economic diversification is changing a Tanzanian village under economic liberalization. More specifically, it asks how different wealth groups are able to incorporate income-generating activities into their livelihood strategies. The conclusion is that while diversification (as a division of labour) is advanced at the village level, it appears that different activities enhance the division of the village into segregated cultural spheres and increase economic differentiation. At village level the diversity of income-generating activities reduces any single line of economic dependency either on the state or on market actors.     

‘Decision not to decide’: a new challenge for planning

This article examines how the policy-maker’s ‘decision not to decide’ affects different levels of internal organization and how it is reflected in the residential patterns of different population groups. The article explores the dynamics of residential patterns in two case studies: the Collective behaviour of the Sylheti community along Whitechapel Road in Eastern London and the Group Action of the ‘Kol-Torah’ Community in Zangwill Street, Jerusalem, where Inner-markets activities create clear property lines around/within their boundaries and result in a similar homogeneous pattern. Identifying the main engines of organized neighbourhood change and the difficulties of planning and dealing with individuals in the housing market shed light on similar processes occurring in other city centres with diverse population groups.     

How Necessary are Intermediary Organizations in the Commercialization of Research?

As universities around the world are under pressure to produce commercial outputs of their research results, it is surprising how a few studies have been conducted about intermediary organizations and their role in this matter. The intermediaries’ basic roles to diminish market and system failures in innovation processes are targeted to respond to the challenges that may emerge in innovation processes, in general, especially in the commercialization of academic research. In this article, we analyse the roles of, and needs for, different kinds of intermediary organizations in two Finnish technology agglomerations from the perspective of the commercialization of new knowledge. We use the Triple Helix concept as a theoretical starting point for our empirical analysis. As many challenges in Triple Helix linkages prove that policy interventions to support the activities of intermediary organizations are justified up to certain point. However, the role of these “go-between” actors may also be irrelevant if networks between university–firm–government helices function well. In addition, many of the challenges in the commercialization of new knowledge originated from the failures of policy implementation concerning the public or semi-public intermediaries.     

The ‘Political’ Economies of Central America: Foreign Aid and Labour Remittances

This paper reviews recent literature to show how foreign aid and labour remittances have transformed Central America's macroeconomy, state apparatus and class structure over the last ten years. They have lifted real exchange rates, changed the composition of investment, lowered food prices, and directly supported large numbers of people. Control over these resources is now a major focus of political activity and donors play a greater role in economic policy. Project administration has become a major function of the state. Planning and public sector personnel management have become more difficult. Foreign funds have favoured decentralization and increased participation, but they have also weakened the core capacity of the state to execute policies. Transfers have fomented new social groups including sectors supported by remittances, foreign-financed soldiers, public employees, non-traditional export producers, financial intermediaries who channel remittances and refugees.     

Votes and markets: Designing policies to increase the influence of individuals

The design of public policies is usually carried out from the perspective of policymakers. This paper views policy design from the perspective of ordinary individuals, seeking to identify ways in which policy design may increase the capacity of citizens to influence the provision of welfare services of significance to their everyday lives. The first section demonstrates that the phrase ‘welfare state’ is a constricting misnomer; welfare in society is the sum of activities in the household, the market and the state. Secondly, the paper considers characteristic consequences of the allocation of welfare by the state, the market and the household. On this basis, the third section reviews the implications for individual influence on public policies of policy designs that are intended to provide more popular participation; bring the state further in; and the use of market alternatives.     

Knowledge-Intensive Business Services as Knowledge Intermediaries in Industrial Regions: A Comparison of the Hsinchu and Tainan Metropolitan Areas

Abstract

The literature repeatedly stresses the role of knowledge-intensive business services (KIBS) as a provider of knowledge and information to other businesses and organizations. KIBS simultaneously promotes, mediates and enables client innovation. This investigation mainly seeks to link KIBS to the analytical structure of concepts, including regional innovation systems, knowledge exchanges and innovation patterns. This investigation interprets the role of KIBS as that of a knowledge intermediary that mediates and transmits knowledge among actors. This study also clarifies the mechanism of knowledge exchanges in different geographic innovation systems. The analytical results obtained by this investigation are applied to analyse the intermediary functions of KIBS in various metropolitan areas in southern and northern Taiwan. This investigation demonstrates variations in how KIBS act as knowledge intermediaries, and that these variations depend mostly on industrial cluster patterns, the dominant innovation patterns at their locations and the birth of sustainable KIBS. KIBS in large/core metropolitan regions, thus, are initially based on science, technology and innovation industrial activities, and further closely resemble doing, using and interaction industrial activities. Consequently, more informal learning processes, such as local buzz and discussion/competition relations, tend to develop in such regions.     

Network position and innovation capability in the regional innovation network

ABSTRACT

This paper investigates the positioning of actors characterized by different natures in a regional innovation network and explores how these actors improve their innovation capabilities by assuming prominence or brokering positions. Innovation capability is widely seen to be the driving force in building regional competitive advantage, therefore investigating how the positioning of actors improves their innovation-related activities is relevant in terms of regional competitiveness. This paper builds on a survey conducted on the Sicilian regional area in Italy. A questionnaire was used to collect data concerning the relationships established between actors and the extent to which these relationships impact actors’ innovation capability. Results suggest that regional actors cannot be considered as a homogeneous group regarding their positioning in a regional network and that the innovation benefits of assuming different network positions depend on their nature. This paper offers some theoretical implications to the literature on regional innovation network and practical suggestions to organizations and regional policy makers.     

Rural gatekeepers and ‘greentrified’ pennine rurality: Opening and closing the access gates?

This paper examines how ‘rural gatekeepers” attempt to mediate processes of rural gentrification in Hebden Bridge, West Yorkshire, UK. It is shown that promotional and steering strategies are interwoven, and embedded, within practices which seek to enable and constrain distinct population movements into gentrified housing and specific locations. To conceptualize the (re)production of distinct internal micro‐geographies within Hebden Bridge, the paper transposes ideas from the urban managerial thesis into the rural context. This is positioned within local and regional ideological and institutional structures. More specifically, it is contended that estate agents influence the signification of social, cultural and economic capital, and the construction of distinct representations and discourses about Pennine rurality. Researchers are thus urged to investigate the role of intermediaries within the processes of rural gentrification to provide deeper insights into the unequal provision of, and accessibility to, housing for different social groups.     

Intermediaries in Regional Innovation Systems: High-Technology Enterprise Survey from Northern Finland

Intermediaries play an important role in national as well as in regional innovation systems, especially in innovation policy. In linking organizations within an innovation system, intermediaries are focusing on technology transfer, commercialization of ideas and funding. This research focuses on the role of intermediaries in high-technology product development in northern Finland. Based on a survey of 168 high-technology enterprises, funding services are regarded as the most important activity of intermediaries. Our results show that finance matters: a key actor within the Finnish innovation system in terms of direct funding and indirect collaborative resourcing, the Finnish Funding Agency for Technology and Innovation (TEKES), is considered the most important public sector organization in private sector product development. The survey also reveals that growth-driven companies with emphases on product innovation and high levels of investment in research and development for increasing their annual turnover benefit the most from intermediaries.     

Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition — Criminal Group Surrender in Papua New Guinea

While PNG's raskol gangs attract increasing scholarly interest, much of this has been directed at entry to raskolism. This article specifically addresses exit from raskolism via the mass surrender. The rise and fall of raskolism are linked through the perennial quest for resources and prestige underlying both strategies. The mass surrender provides a spectacular illustration of how crime generates new opportunity structures beyond crime itself. It also illustrates the continuing importance of brokering parties in negotiations between local groups and national authorities.     

Labour Migration and the Swedish Labour Market Model: a case study of recruitment of Yugoslav workers to Svenska Fläktfabriken in Växjö, 1969–1970

This essay deals with active labour recruitment from Yugoslavia to Sweden at the end of the 1960s and early 1970s. It is a case study of recruitments of foreign-born workers to one particular manufacturing industry. It focuses primarily on trade-union actions and strategies in connection with the recruitments, analysed in the light of the power relations within the corporatist Swedish labour market model. This approach illuminates how the Swedish labour market model dealt with an issue involving both conflicting and coincident interests between labour and capital, with the state as an intermediary. But the recruitments are also analysed from the recruited workers' points of view. The essay reveals great union influence in the process of labour recruitment, and suggests that the national Swedish labour market authority only approved as many work permits for non-Nordic workers as the trade union concerned accepted. This power, in combination with the shortage of workers, could be used by the unions as a forceful instrument in their struggle to transform working life according to their members' interests. Accordingly, the labour recruitments to Sweden were framed by the power relations and the corporative practices within the Swedish labour market model.     

Restructuring women’s work; labour market and household gender regimes in the Greater Latrobe Valley,Australia

This article examines the impact of economic restructuring on gender relations. It examines the implications of labour market change for households within a region, in this case the Greater Latrobe Valley, Victoria, Australia. The argument is that the unchanging gender structures of the labour market constrain the intentions and efforts of individuals within households to significantly alter household gender relations. The analysis considers how restructuring has reshaped the regional labour market since 1996, changing opportunities for both men’s and women’s employment. Despite these changes, the regional labour market continues to be underpinned by a ‘male breadwinner’ gender regime and significant occupational and industrial gender segregation. Drawing on four vignettes, the analysis shows that the impetus towards greater gender equality in the household is constrained by a stagnant and stable labour market gender regime.     

Mission statement: militarized discourses in women's advocacy organizations

This article contributes to the literature on the role of advocacy groups in political processes by exploring militarism within women's advocacy organizations. Specifically, I bring together theories of banal nationalism and banal militarization to inform my analysis of pervasive militarized discourse in 13 women's advocacy groups in the state of Pennsylvania, USA. Discursive analysis of organizational websites and in-depth interviews with organizational leaders reveals that the use of militarized discourse is commonplace among state-level women's advocacy groups. I ultimately argue that advocacy groups' use of militarized discourse is inherently problematic as it reinforces hegemonic privilege and detracts from progressive organizing. I also account for the role that discourse plays in the creation of place/space (and vice versa) in my discussion of how Pennsylvania's unique political culture affects advocacy for women's rights. Grounded in feminist geopolitical work, I offer some potential solutions to militarism within political advocacy: namely a re-focusing of advocates' attention on the lived experiences of their constituents.     

Regulating the global illicit economy: Singapore's role in United States' spatial financial surveillance

Illicit transactions are increasingly integrated to legitimate financial flows between international financial centers (IFCs) and offshore jurisdictions (OJs). The United States (US) is actively engaged in regulating illicit transactions through anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing (AML/CFT) regulations backed by economic sanctions statutes. In this paper, I show how US sanctions regulatory capacity has developed by scaling out compliance and enforcement functions to state regulators and advanced business services (ABS) intermediaries in Singapore. Scaling out draws on a relational scale framework that locates the multiscalar surveillance of IFCs and OJs' entangled financial networks as an instrument for governing the illicit global economy. At the same time, Singapore's enrolment in US financial surveillance benefits the financial center by strengthening the city-state's regulatory functions. Using cases of high-profile illicit financial activities as well as interviews with regulatory agents in Singapore and to a lesser extent the US, the paper shows how multiscalar compliance and enforcement practices support US′ extra-jurisdictional discipline of rogue actors and jurisdictions while augmenting Singapore's stature as a clean and trusted financial center.     

Bringing Organizations Back In: Multilevel Feedback Effects on Individual Civic Inclusion

Policy feedback scholarship has focused on how laws and their implementation affect either organizations (e.g., their resources, priorities, political opportunities, or incentive structures) or individuals (e.g., their civic skills and resources or their psychological orientations toward the state). However, in practice the distinction between organizations and individuals is not clear‐cut: Organizations interpret policy for individuals, and individuals experience policy through organizations. Thus, scholars have argued for a multi‐level model of feedback effects illuminating how policies operating at the organizational level reverberate at the individual level. In this theory‐building article, we push this insight by examining how public policy influences nonprofit organizations’ role in the civic life of beneficiaries. We identify five roles that nonprofit organizations play. For each role, we draw on existing research to identify policy mechanisms that either enlarge or diminish nonprofits’ capacity to facilitate individual incorporation and engagement. From these examples, we derive cross‐cutting hypotheses concerning how different categories of citizens may need policy to operate differently to enhance their civic influence; whether policy that is “delivered” through nonprofits may dampen citizens’ relationship with the state; and how the civic boost provided by policy may be influenced by the degree of latitude conferred on recipient organizations.     

Networks of Speculation: Making Land Markets on Myanmar Facebook

Digital platforms have changed how property is sold and valued in the Global North, yet little is known about digital tools in emerging land markets. Drawing on in situ and digital ethnography, we argue that Facebook plays a key role in making a new kind of market in Myanmar, one in which land is transformed into a speculative asset, exchanged across ever-expanding networks. While commodification is familiar within longer histories of capitalism, this case highlights the significance of digital platforms to the contemporary remaking of property relations. Unlike classic cases of market-making enabled by active state regulation, Myanmar’s digital land markets were forged in the context of state absence by brokers who harnessed the technological affordances of social media to increase the scale, scope and speed of transactions. This creative re-appropriation of the platform forged new, unregulated digital markets that ultimately accumulated corporate profits and intensified participant risk.