Eric W. Welch

• PhD
• Professor (Full) at Arizona State University

This paper examines possible causes, consequences, and potential solutions for addressing vaccine hesitancy in the United States, focusing on the perspectives of academic scientists. By examining the experiences of scientists, who are arguably a critical community in US society, we gain deeper insights into how they understand the complexities of v...

Climate change can bring about large-scale irreversible physical impacts and systemic changes in the operating environment of public organizations. Research on preconditions for organizational adaptation to climate change has produced two parallel lines of inquiry, one focusing on macro-level norms, rules and expectations and the other on meso-leve...

In line with its Science and Innovation Strategy, FAO has developed this guidance on strengthening science–policy interfaces (SPIs) for agrifood systems at the national level, helping to ensure that effective policy decisions are made based upon sufficient, relevant, and credible science and evidence. It is targeted to SPIs that are focused on the...

Public agencies are increasingly required to respond to multiple and evolving threats. Perceptions of risk are important triggers of organizational responses and motivate adaptive strategies. Integrating administrative data with a survey of public managers employed across the 300 largest transit agencies in the US, we examine how outsourcing decisi...

This paper aims to better understand how information strategies matter for the management of extreme weather events in public transit agencies. It examines how past extreme weather events and the availability of information on extreme weather impacts influence risk-related cognitions,which influence planning for future extreme events and eventually...

In 2022, the US Supreme Court decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization to overturn federal law safeguarding abortion rights led to considerable national debate on abortion and reproductive rights. We report the findings of a survey of academic scientists’ perspectives regarding abortion rights, state policies, and the impact of the...

Flexible work arrangement policies provide employees the flexibility to manage their work and personal lives. Despite various efforts of public organizations, struggles to simplify or integrate work and private life demands continue, resulting in employees' lower satisfaction, higher stress, higher turnover, and lower productivity. Our study focuse...

The internal dynamics and structure of collaborations affect the performance of its members and, ultimately, the success of the collaborative enterprise. This is tested under conditions of disruption, stressing team dynamics and their ability to succeed. Teams may adapt, employing social innovations that facilitate their ability to adjust to uncert...

This article develops and tests a set of hypotheses examining how contracting out of public services affects intra-organizational communication in public agencies (i.e., the principal organization). We draw from two competing perspectives: contracting scholarship argues that outsourcing reduces an organization's structural complexity and enhances i...

United States (US) immigration policies have increasingly focused on national security resulting in universities experiencing declines in international student applications, constraints on international scholar employment, and complications facilitating international research collaborations. The COVID-19 pandemic brought additional travel restricti...

How public organizations respond strategically to natural hazards is relevant for maintaining functionality and protecting citizens. An essential component of strategic response is coordinating with multiple organizations in ways that provide resources and mutual support. Drawing from resource dependence and cognitive behavior theories, we investig...

Stay-at-home-orders, online learning, and work from home policies are some of the responses governments, universities, and other institutions adopted to slow the spread of COVID-19. However, research shows these measures have increased pre-existing gender disparities in the workplace. The working conditions for women during the pandemic worsened du...

Cyber-incidents threaten the confidentiality, efficiency, and integrity of digital information systems, causing privacy risks, economic losses, and reputational damages, and exposing managerial limitations. Although these phenomena are becoming more frequent in public agencies, research to date has mainly focused on private sector organizations and...

This study expands the scope of research on academic entrepreneurship to include academic inventors who actively engage in late-stage commercialization. It investigates post-patent involvement of academic scientists in the development of products based on their patented inventions. Using data from a 2010 national survey of 798 academic inventors li...

Inclusion in the workplace is defined as the extent to which individuals perceive that they are part of significant processes in organizations. This article explores the determinants of workplace inclusion by asking: How does the demographic composition of social networks inside and outside of the workplace affect perceived inclusion in the workpla...

Broadband internet use is often heralded for its transformative potential in a broad range of policy areas, but there is scarce evidence on whether this is so, and how it can be utilized most effectively by organizations and communities. While the attribution of change to programmatic efforts is a familiar challenge in evaluation research, broadban...

To better understand the effects of broadband use, there must first be a commitment from policymakers to support evaluation. This volume has made an argument about why policymakers should undertake this investment and has outlined needs and strategies for advancing this knowledge. It has also examined the profession of broadband evaluation itself....

Broadband, or high-speed internet, has been called the most important infrastructure challenge of the century by the National Broadband Plan. It has the potential to connect remote communities, help coordinate and streamline healthcare services, enable our children with unparalleled access to learning opportunities, promote government transparency...

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1057/s41599-021-00823-9.].

Research on the role of social capital in disaster recovery shows mixed results. Recent studies have attempted to resolve the conflicting findings by focusing on how different forms of social capital contribute to recovery outcomes. However, these studies have generally ignored the temporal effects of social capital on disaster recovery. This study...

Purpose This study extends the concept of managerial efficacy to include managerial means efficacy (MME) attributed to the utility and quality of means external to managers for performing a task. Focusing on its antecedents, the authors theorize and empirically test MME sourced from the organization (MMEO) and situate the examination under extreme...

Post COVID-19 Implications for Genetic Diversity and Genomics Research & Innovation: A Call for Governance and Research Capacity http://www.fao.org/3/cb5573en/cb5573en.pdf

Much of the available evidence regarding COVID-19 effects on the scientific community in the U.S. is anecdotal and non-representative. We report findings from a based survey of university-based biologists, biochemists, and civil and environmental engineers regarding negative and positive COVID-19 impacts, respondent contributions to addressing the...

Survey alert letters improve response rates and assure potential respondents that the research is legitimate and of high quality. Pre-notification by mail increases response rates for web surveys because it represents a second mode of communication and contributes to increases in respondent trust and study legitimacy. Due to work-from-home orders i...

Different norms, rules and practices (referred as institutions) organize the exchange of germplasm to address broader global challenges such as advancement of science and innovation, food security, sustainable agriculture and global equity. Some of these institutions are now embedded in various treaties and national regulations. This chapter demons...

Foreign-born academic scientists have been consistently shown to be more productive than the native-born in the United States with regard to research and patents. However, no study has yet analyzed whether the foreign-born are also more likely to commercialize their research after having it patented. This paper utilizes a 2010 survey of academic in...

Survey alert letters improve response rates and assure potential respondents that the research is legitimate and high quality. Pre-notification by mail increases response rates for web surveys because of the multi-mode use and increases in respondent trust. Due to the work-from-home orders in response to COVID-19, postal alert letters are unlikely...

The tension between bureaucratic and democratic values has characterized significant debates in the field of public administration. In this paper, we ask, does public managers’ confidence in their organizational administrative capacity affect citizen participation? Using managerial confidence in organizational response capacity (ORC) during crises...

Concerns about electronic information security in government have increased alongside increased use of online media. However, to date, few studies have examined the social mechanisms influencing electronic information security. This article applies a socio-technical framework to model how technical, organizational and environmental complexities lim...

Academic scientists who access and use biological materials are embedded in an increasingly complex arrangement of conflicting scientific, commercial, regulatory and ethical institutional logics. This paper examines how scientists navigate and respond to these conflicting institutions. Using in-depth interviews with 40 academic scientists in four f...

Scientists are experiencing more and more regulations over biological materials exchange. These regulations result in paperwork and increase scientists’ perceived procedural complexity when they request biological materials from other scientists in their networks. To help scientists deal with complicated procedures and enhance their research activi...

Chinese scientists constitute the largest group of foreign-born tenure-track faculty in science and engineering (S&E) fields in the USA, and have become a target of recent Chinese government efforts seeking to attract them back to China. This study examines the differences of collaboration networks between Chinese scientists and US-born scientists...

Increasing concern about global sustainability has ushered in a diverse set of regulatory policies that aim to encourage sustainable practices and outcomes. This chapter sheds light on how these regulatory policies affect multiple aspects of companies’ sustainable supply chain practices. It begins by describing sustainable supply chain strategies m...

Increasing concern about global sustainability has ushered in a diverse set of regulatory policies that aim to encourage sustainable business practices and outcomes. This chapter sheds light on how these regulatory policies affect multiple aspects of companies’ sustainable supply chain practices. It begins by describing sustainable supply chain str...

This paper examines how extreme weather conditions influence urban public transport ridership with a particular focus on the role of bus stop shelters. Using bus ridership data from the Salt Lake City metropolitan area, we find that extreme weather such as very high and low temperatures, and heavy rainfall reduces public transport ridership, while...

Extreme weather events often disrupt the operation of public transit systems, and challenge the capacity of transit agencies to effectively respond to them. In this paper, we draw upon a recent nationwide survey of 273 public transit agencies in metropolitan regions across the United States to understand the factors that influence their scope of ada...

In recent years, international and national policies have intensified monitoring and control over the access, exchange and use of biological materials. New regulative institutions addressing concerns about ownership and safety, as well as fairness and equity, are increasingly intermingled with informal practices and norms of exchange, raising the b...

The increase in extreme weather events due to climate change poses serious challenges to public transit systems. These events disrupt transit operations, impair service quality, increase threats to public safety, and damage infrastructure. Despite the growing risk of extreme weather and climate change, little is known about how public managers reco...

This genomics global governance research study presents the dynamics and the evolving nature of salient challenges that global genomics initiatives encounter in designing new models for data management, exchange, and collaboration across disciplines, sectors, and countries. Using a multiple case study approach, we assessed and compared organization...

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/nph.14993/full Over the last decade, there has been an ongoing revolution in the exploration, manipulation and synthesis of biological systems, through the development of new technologies that generate, analyse and exploit big data. Users of Plant Genetic Resources (PGR) can potentially leverage these ca...

The study responds to the growing call for a more systematic approach to research on organizational responses to extreme events (Boin and Van Eeten 2013; Christensen et al. 2016; Fischbacher-Smith 2010; Roux-Dufort 2007). It develops and tests an integrated framework based on the organizational adaptation and learning theory to shed light on how pu...

Academic productivity is realized through resources obtained from professional networks in which scientists are embedded. Using a national survey of academic faculty in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) fields across multiple institution types, we examine how the structure of professional networks affects scholarly productivi...

This scoping report focuses on the potential implications of new synthetic biology and genomic research trajectories on the International Treaty for Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (ITPGRFA or ‘Treaty’). Specifically, it provides an introductory examination of how the evolving technological, legal and institutional context surround...

Over the years, researchers in public institutions and universities have accessed genetic materials from a variety of sources, freely exchanged them with fellow researchers and institutions and shared their research results with foreign and local collaborators. The 2010 Nagoya Protocol regulating access to genetic resources is set to change this sc...

This paper examines how human and social capital affect the production of medical innovation outputs along the translational research continuum. Despite efforts like the NIH CTSA program to institutionalize translational research, significant gaps exist between the different stages of the translational process due in large part to the compartmental...

The production of scientific knowledge is an inherently social process making professional networks important for producing science outcomes. Although prior work has demonstrated the connection between collaboration and productivity, most research that examines scientist networks begins from the perspective that structure predicts productivity. Ins...

This report presents findings from the 2016 national survey of local governments on public participation, technology use, data sharing, and work life as part of a long-term research study interested in understanding the relationships between technology and civic engagement in local governments sponsored by the Center for Science, Technology, and En...

Reduction of global food insecurity depends upon the mobilization of genetic diversity for agricultural research and innovation. Yet increased regulation of genetic materials is profoundly affecting the way agricultural research is conducted, particularly international research that requires access to diverse germplasm. This study draws from an int...

NOVEMBER 2016 Key messages  Network analysis provides a mechanism to both understand how information and communication structures vary across sites, and to identify opportunities for intervening in ways that may improve communication flows.  Farmer-expert network structures differ between Lushoto and Rakai. Farmers and expert organizations are mo...

Since the 1970s, travel training programs, which provide a short-term training to people with disabilities and older people to teach them independent travel skills required to use fixed-route transportation, have spread across the United States. But the authors note that currently, there is no integrative framework for evaluating the training progr...

Concerns about electronic information security in government have increased alongside increased use of online media. However, to date, few studies have examined the social mechanisms influencing electronic information security. This article applies a socio-technical framework to model how technical, organizational and environmental complexities lim...

As part of the “Policy Action for Climate Change Adaptation” (PACCA) project this info note summarizes findings of a project activity entitled “Influencing and linking policies and institutions from national to local level for the development and adoption of climate‐resilient food systems in East Africa” undertaken by researchers from Bioversity In...

As part of the Policy Action for Climate Change Adaptation (PACCA) project, this info note summarizes findings of a project activity entitled “Influencing and linking policies and institutions from national to local level for the development and adoption of climate‐resilient food systems in East Africa” undertaken by researchers from Bioversity Int...

This study investigates the tradeoffs that providers of genetic materials make between constructing a benefits arrangement and establishing use restrictions. The analysis makes use of individual- and project-level data collected from university and government researchers in the United States. Results show, for instance, that although most genetic r...

This study examines how personal research collaboration and advice networks of academic faculty in six fields of science and engineering affect three kinds of satisfaction: satisfaction with rewards; satisfaction with reputation of department and institution; and satisfaction with professional recognition and visibility of research. The study inclu...

This study examines the determinants of Environment Management System (EMS) adoption by public wastewater treatment facilities in the US. Based on the literature, it considers the range of regulatory, market and political influences on EMS adoption. The paper also incorporates prior work on publicness theory to articulate possible sectoral differen...

The adoption of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in public organizations promises to better connect managers with citizens, increase public participation in government decision making, improve the efficiency of service delivery, decrease uncertainty, and improve information dissemination. While each of these outcomes is important f...

The use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in public organizations increasingly holds the potential to improve transparency, accountability, and public participation, by providing a more effective and efficient disclosure of information to the citizens and organizations and by providing channels for interaction with the government...

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) has become a mandate for strategic managers and is often an important element of a differentiation strategy, but there is little research on how managers can make socially responsible decisions within the context of competitive strategy. In this study we explain how data envelopment analysis (DEA) results can b...

In this research, we aim to explore the adoption of social media initiatives in the increasingly global higher education market. We will collect survey data from individuals in different administrative positions at large public universities in Singapore and the United States. We are particularly interested in the consequences for information flows...

Social media comprises a set of new technologies that enable richer data exchange in highly decentralized, dynamic, and loosely structured versatile virtual environments. Social media technology is expected to enhance participation, learning, and knowledge production in government settings, aligning traditional structural and authority boundaries w...

We employ the individual-opportunity nexus perspective to conceptualize entrepreneurial commitment of academic scientists as the pursuit and attainment of external grant funding. We develop and test a model of network characteristics and cognitive biases that predict the likelihood that scientists will commit to a grant opportunity and the likeliho...

Genetic drift (GD) randomly impacts small breeds and imported populations and therefore can impact policies focused upon conserving animal genetic resources. This paper evaluates GD for a population of Meishan pigs imported into the U. S. and explores the ramifications of GD on access and benefit sharing (ABS) of genetic resources under the Nagoya...

The open systems movement proposes legal and organizational arrangements to encourage resource exchange and increase the potential for research collaboration and innovation. It is attracting increasing attention from actors seeking collaborative solutions to complex global challenges that cut across issues, agencies and scales. The G8 effort to est...

There is currently no generally accepted method for identifying the community of translational researchers when evaluating Clinical and Translational Science Centers. We use data from the multiyear evaluation of the University of Illinois at Chicago Center for Clinical and Translational Science (CCTS) to investigate the complexities of reliably ide...

There is growing recognition that sustainable intensification of agricultural production systems and their successful adaptation to changes in climate will depend upon the improved access to, and use of, genetic diversity. This paper analyzes how the collection, use and distribution of plant genetic resources by the Consortium of International Rese...

The adoption of information and communication technologies (ICT) in public organizations promises to better connect managers with citizens, increase public participation in government decision making, improve the efficiency of service delivery, decrease uncertainty, and improve information dissemination. While each of these outcomes is important fo...

Scholars have expressed concern that the Nagoya Protocol (NP) might hinder academic research by constraining the exchange and use of genetic resources (Jinnah and Jungcurt, 2009). This paper investigates current genetic resource exchange and use practices as a first step to better understand how the Protocol might affect US agricultural research. T...

Social media comprises a set of new technologies - including Twitter and Facebook, but others as well - that enable richer data exchange in highly decentralized, dynamic, and loosely structured, versatile virtual environments (Parameswaran & Whinston, 2007). Social media technology is expected to generate "cultures of participation" marked by colla...

Although the rise of big data, open government, and social media implies greater data sharing, data exchange involves a complex social process. Based on prior research, this paper hypothesizes that greater data sharing will occur in agencies that demonstrate characteristics of interdependency, asymmetries of power and influence, and imposed require...

US local governments are under increasing pressure to adopt electronic participation technologies to engage stakeholders in decision-making. The choice set of technologies and the ease with which they can be applied, has potentially increased the complexity of the context within which managers operate. Using data from a national survey of 850 gover...

This study investigates the factors that determine academic scientists’ decisions to engage in innovative activities during the stages of project selection and invention disclosures. Based on research, we hypothesize that individual factors (expected returns from research commercialization and open science attitudes) as well as institutional factor...

This article contributes to the emerging literature on transparency by developing and empirically testing a theoretical framework that explains the determinants of local government Web site transparency. It aims to answer the following central question: What institutional factors determine the different dimensions of government transparency? The fr...

The relationship between transparency and participation of government is not well articulated in the literature. Transparency provides stakeholders with knowledge about the processes, structures and products of government. Participation refers to the quantity, quality and diversity of input of stakeholders into government decision-making. Greater t...

Résumé La relation entre transparence et participation gouvernementales n’est pas bien définie dans la littérature. La transparence offre aux parties prenantes des connaissances sur les processus, les structures et les produits du gouvernement. La participation concerne la quantité, la qualité et la diversité des moyens dont disposent les parties p...